


Adopted

by Gem_Gem, harrylee94



Series: Bonded by Words Stories [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Crossover, Multi, Rating May Change, Sherlock & Harry Potter fusion, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2020-01-15 05:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18492637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Gem/pseuds/Gem_Gem, https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrylee94/pseuds/harrylee94
Summary: When Harry Potter is left an orphan after the death of his parents, John and Sherlock, dazed from the murder and the sudden imprisonment of Sirius Black, save him from being abandoned with his hateful muggle aunt and uncle by instead taking the boy in themselves.Together they must defy Dumbledore's words, tend to a traumatised Harry and solve the Potter's case.Will solving it, ensuring Harry's Godfather his freedom, be the best thing for The Boy Who Lived?--The Bonded by Words Stories are co-written stories by Gem and Harry.Bonded by words forever.The only link these stories have is that they were written by us both and are of the Sherlock Fandom.





	1. Cover

**Author's Note:**

> We started this story sometime in August 2017.  
> We have yet to fully finish and edit it, but would like to know if others would be interested in reading it.  
> This is a teaser!  
> This is a cover image of what the story is about.
> 
> Tags may be added over time and the rating may also change. - However, some things that may spoil the story will not be added.
> 
> Please leave your feedback!  
> Without it, we can't make a proper judgement on whether or not to focus on it and post it.


	2. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> October 31st 1981.

It looked like a cauldron had exploded, or a bomb had hit. An entire wall of the Potter’s supposed safe house reduced to rubble, shattered glass, torn books and charred toys littering the once lusciously green garden. A smoky skull and snake hung in the air above the house, looming and surveying all below. It was a disaster, and the only thing keeping John from tears was the wailing bundle in his arms.

Harry had, miraculously, survived with nothing more than a cut on his brow. It felt wrong, like all curse wounds did, and John had no doubt that it would scar, but he was alive. He was alive, and hurt, and crying, and it was all John could do to cast a tergeo spell and his own created diagnostic spell on the child, shaken as he was at the sight of James’ body sprawled across the bottom of the stairs.

He’d met Sirius there; the shaggy haired man had been… distraught wasn’t the right word for it, it was worse than that, but whatever it was he was feeling it hadn’t been helping Harry at all, so he’d persuaded the man to hand the boy over. Without Harry, it seemed as though a tether had been cut, and Sirius had charged out of the house and disapparated a moment later, leaving behind his beloved bike, and John to calm and tend to the last surviving Potter.

“Sh, sh,” John hushed, rubbing the boy’s back with his fist – fingers curled tightly around his wand – as he held him against his chest, “I’ve got you. You’re safe now. You’re safe now.”

There was a pop nearby and a flush of air, of magic, and John swung around, fully prepared to fight whilst cradling the bawling infant, but it was only Sherlock. The man was extremely pale, unsettled, and he looked around with one hand going to his hair, the other rubbing over his mouth, before he turned to John with a tensed jaw, looking down at Harry. He looked suddenly sick and gaunt with pure fury, and he stepped closer, moving to the house, eyes darting searchingly around everything and anything around him. Scanning the floor, the crumbled walls, the debris, and the sky, in a relentless, erratic, repeating circuit.

“ _Don’t_ ,” John called to him, voice choking as he rocked from side to side, moving his hand to Harry’s shoulders. “Don’t go in.”

Sherlock shot him a sideways glance, “I have to,” he uttered and slipped inside the broken and beaten building, leaving John alone again.

Sniffing slightly, John turned his back on the building and focused his attention on the street. He could see people’s faces in the windows of houses opposite. One or two had wandered out onto their doorsteps, but no further, all too terrified by the mark hovering above, and what it could mean. He didn’t blame them. He kept his mind as blank as possible, trying desperately not to remember the way James had…

He coughed, blinking back tears once again as Harry gripped at his jumper, “It’s… I got you Harry. I’ve got you.”

“Oh my goodness!”

Minerva was one of several others who arrived in quick succession after that, and she rushed to John in concern, eyes flicking between weeping Harry and the Potter’s destroyed house.

Albus Dumbledore materialised beside her and sombrely went toward the building in silence as Alastor Moody, Rubeus Hagrid, Remus Lupin, and Arthur Weasley also arrived. Each one frozen in place at the sight and the horror of the situation. None of them thought it would come to this, that something this dire, this horrible, could ever happen so quickly, so easily.

“Oh _Merlin_ ,” Remus gasped, almost stumbling as soon as he’d appeared, his eyes wide with fear and desperate hope as he stared up at the house, before his gaze fell on John. The mediwizard could only bite his lip and shake his head in response. “ _No_! No they _can’t_!” he cried, immediately trying to dart for the door, but Arthur quickly caught him, holding him back. Remus fought and shook and bawled and shouted, but soon fell to his knees in Weasley’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

“...How is the boy?” Minerva asked John in a quiet tone of voice, motioning to Harry with her fingers, her mouth pursed and eyes wet with tears. “How did _he_ even—Albus?”

A slender hand was lifted in response to silence her, gaze still on the house, and then he stepped forward as Sherlock came out, “What happened? What have you found, have you seen?”

“Surely I don’t have to state the obvious with _you_ , Dumbledore?” Sherlock intoned. “You _know_ what happened and what I found _and_ saw – Lily and James Potter are dead. Voldemort is _also_ dead.” Sherlock, however, then hesitated a moment, flicking his eyes aside briefly as if he were unsure, though his blank expression never changed. He continued lowly after a second, and John had to strain to hear him. “I told you something like this would happen. There were whispers about a traitor and I told you, specifically both Sn—”

“Are you _quite sure_ he is dead?” Albus asked, cutting Sherlock off, much to the other man’s annoyance.

“Harry is alive, so _yes_ , I’m sure he is dead. – If he were alive, he would have finished the job. He would have attacked us.”

John heard Arthur gasp, and a few mutterings from Auror Moody, but he could only stare in shock. Dead?

“’E’s dead?” Hagrid asked, shocked and uncertain, speaking what everyone must have been thinking. “Bu’… _how_?”

“Does it matter?” Arthur countered, still comforting Remus.

“I think the _more_ important question is ‘how did he find the Potters in the first place?’” Moody said, looking at Dumbledore, but then quickly turning to John. “How the hell did _you_ get here so fast, hm?”

John blinked at him in surprise, “I… James… He let me cast some wards around the house before the fidelius was cast.”

The Auror narrowed his eyes at him, carefully studying his face, and then his hold on the still crying baby, and nodded in satisfaction.

“You should be questioning Sirius, not John,” Sherlock told Alastor without looking away from Dumbledore, eyes narrowed and expression tight. “Not only was he _here_ before all of us, but he _knows_ something. Clearly.”

“Knows something?” Minerva asked, still looking to be on the verge of tears though holding them back with an iron will. Her hands were shaking but only just. “How could you know that?--”

“He wouldn’t have _left_ if he didn’t know something that we don’t,” Sherlock pointed out with irritation.

“Left his bike and everything,” John added in a mutter, looking down at his charge and, instinctively, giving him a kiss on the forehead, which, surprisingly, soothed him a little, his tears finally beginning to dry up.

“ _Black_?” Moody said, looking around, waving his wand in patterns John did not recognise, before stopping in the same spot Sirius had apparated in and promptly vanishing, leaving John only an after-image of his sneer.

Arthur blinked rapidly, “… What do we do?”

“There isn’t much we _can_ do at the present time,” Dumbledore sighed, glancing from the house to Harry with a deep sadness on his face. “Voldemort’s followers would have already scattered—”

Sherlock scowled, “All the _more_ reason for us to track them down – It will be much easier now. They are lost and confused. Easier to slip up, to make mistakes, to give up and give in,” he said. “To betray each other. They are no longer stupidly fearless.”

“I’m sure the Aurors will continue to do their best in capturing who they can,” Dumbledore replied as he made toward John.

“Their best is not good enough. It _never_ was,” Sherlock snorted.

“’Ere, watch wha’ you say to Professor Dumbledore!” Hagrid warned, buffing himself up a little, not that it did anything to threaten or scare the glower from Sherlock’s face.

“It’s all right, Hagrid,” Albus smiled with a soft, dismissive wave of his hand, looking at John questioningly as Sherlock’s scowl deepened at his turned back. “How is young Harry?”

John sniffed, still rocking the boy back and forth, “Scared,” he replied. “He had a few cuts and bruises, and he’ll have a scar from the… from the attack, but I healed him up best I could.”

“Good, good,” Albus said gently, reaching to trail the fingertips of one hand near the boy’s small forehead. His eyes hidden for a moment by a flashing gleam of his half-moon glasses as he tilted his head, studying the red, puffy jagged abrasion on Harry’s skin. “Very good.”

“Oh, Albus, what are we going to do with the poor lad?” Minerva whispered from nearby, wringing at the sleeves of her robes. “We all knew something to this effect could potentially happen but I don’t recall much actually being done to ensure the safety of the children. Did she have a will? Did either of them?--”

“ _Sirius_ is his Godfather,” Sherlock pointed out with a loud sigh as if the course of action was painfully obvious. “Once we find him, _we_ don’t have to do anything with him. – And he’s young, he won’t remember this. _Any_ of this. He’ll live blissfully ignorant of what occurred until he is old enough to understand.”

Arthur nodded, “I’m sure Molly… I’m sure _we_ can help for a bit.”

Remus spluttered, taking several deep breaths and looked up at hiccupping and snuffling Harry with blurred eyes, “Is… is he alright?” he questioned, voice shuddering and breaking, limp like his posture, his buckling legs.

John sent him a small smile, the boy thankfully now falling into an exhausted sleep against him, “Yes Remus. Harry’s safe and fine,” he soothed, grimacing in sympathy as the werewolf almost collapsed again in relief.

“Come,” Dumbledore murmured, giving John a gentle smile and turning to address the others. “Let’s get Harry somewhere warm and away from...all of this.” Taking out his wand, he aimed it at the sky, at the writhing mark that towered over them, and cleared it away with a shot of white. The nearby muggles gasped with awe and surprise, more of them gathered at their doorsteps, windows, all wrapped in their pyjamas and dressing gowns.

“Albus,” Minerva said with a soft quiet voice, her gaze and one unsteady hand signalling to the ruins of the Potter’s house. “What should we do about—?”

“Don’t worry so,” he assured her soothingly. “Go with John and help prepare a makeshift bed for young Harry. I shall do what is needed. - Remus and Arthur, you should go too.”

Arthur nodded, but Remus could only stare at the sleeping boy, and John’s heart twisted at the look of devastation written across his face. Quickly, John approached, coming in close, and Remus’ breath caught in his throat, one shaky hand rising to rest against Harry’s cheek as he gave a wavering smile.

Several moments later, he looked up at John, “Take care of him.”

John nodded, “On my magic,” he swore.

Remus nodded and backed away, glancing back at the house one last time before twisting out of sight. Once he’d gone, John turned to Sherlock and gave him a nod. Sherlock inclined his head back very slightly, turned around, took his wand out with a tight fist and then disappeared with a ripple of air.

“Go,” Dumbledore told both John and McGonagall with a reassuring smile, eyes still sombre, expression downtrodden, but posture confident, powerful and determined.

With another nod, John shifted Harry so he could hold him safely during the transition – Arthur vanishing as he did so – and spun, thinking of safety. Of home.


	3. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 221B Baker Street

He barely slept that night, his thoughts plagued by James’ frozen empty face and his sleep interrupted by Harry’s piercing cries. Thankfully, however, Professor McGonagall—no, Minerva—had been there, hushing and soothing the infant before John could even reach him. She was as new to it as John was, having had no children of her own, having not looked after one so young, and yet she took to it without fault, without complaint, and he was grateful and awed by her. How she could put the horrendous events to the back of her mind so quickly, so effortlessly, so strongly, was something John could only admire. He knew that, just like him, she would grieve, would take a moment to herself to weep, but that wasn’t yet. Yes, that night had been hard. He was unable to let himself mourn, though he knew it wouldn’t be for long. When Sirius returned and took guardianship of his godson he could break, they all could, but not now.

Time, as it tends to do, passed and he dozed very little, having to keep Harry calm and entertained with the help of Minerva, who was John’s crutch, was his saviour, when the baby would scream and screech in misery. Dumbledore helped also, appearing just when John was thinking of him, when they were in need of him and the information he brought. Information that was not often best received. News was spreading of he-who-must-not-be-named’s demise, a new title arising for the one who supposedly defeated him; The Boy Who Lived.

It was revolting. Somehow people knew about Harry, somehow his life was a sideshow, a headline. John had a suspicion that it was the Ministry, that it was them who had allowed it, who had chosen it, who had let it infect the wizarding world and ruin what was left of Harry’s poor future. How could they not see how damaging this was? How pathetic it was to hold a child, an infant, accountable for the death of another? Harry had not been the hero that night. He wasn’t the boy who lived, he was the boy who survived. John wanted it to stop, for them to think of the boy, to think of how this would affect him later on in life. How it would affect his opinions on the parents he had lost, the parents who had fought and died for him. They were the heroes. Harry was only here because of them, because of her.

He expected Sirius to come charging in at any moment, yelling about injustice and the disgusting, snivelling nerve of the pureblooded bastards at the top, pulling all the strings, and yet he didn’t. There was no one for Harry but the Order, but himself and Minerva and Dumbledore. Where was Black?

He got his answer one drab morning on the 3rd of November, waking to the most unbelievable news. Waking to the answers of where Sirius had been, where he now was, and why he had not come by for his Godson.

“Sirius did _what_?!”

“I don’t believe it any more than you do,” Minerva told him, frowning at a calm Dumbledore and gesturing in disbelief, blinking behind her glasses and shaking her head. “Albus, this just _isn’t true_!”

“I’m afraid others think differently,” he murmured with a small sigh and a sympathetically tight smile.

“Can’t _you_ do something?” she exclaimed. “He did _not_ do this. He…he couldn’t have. They were like _brothers_ , Albus. He would never betray him, let alone the boy!”

“There were witnesses,” he replied with a sad wince. “All of which have now had their memories erased and altered, of course. - However, they all said the same thing. All of them. Not to mention he was their Secret-Keeper. It is quite difficult to ignore that.”

John growled, scraped an angry hand through his hair, and then crossed his arms, “Sirius would _never_ betray James!”

“I’m afraid that’s not an opinion many share at the current time,” he responded unhappily. “Sirius Black has been arrested… and will be sentenced to Azkaban without a trial for thirteen counts of murder, giving information about the whereabouts of the Potter household which lead to their murder, and service to Lord Voldemort.”

John had already opened his mouth to argue further, but now it just hung open, empty of words as shock took over. Sentenced to Azkaban without… “That _can’t_ be legal,” he said, voice too quiet.

Dumbledore nodded, “It isn’t good and I cannot see a way around it. He was witnessed to kill both Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggles. - Peter had confronted him, apparently. He was heard screaming about how Sirius had betrayed James and Lily Potter, and then Sirius attacked him, exploded the street, and was seen laughing—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” John snapped, turning away and running his hand through his hair again. It wasn’t true. He would never have done that. Not ever. He would have died first.

After a brief hard and tensed silence, Albus turned to Minerva, “I need to ask a favour of you, Minerva.”

“ _Anything_ , Albus.”

“Come with me,” he said, beckoning her over and leaving John in the room alone for a moment. “We need to make sure the boy is safe...”

John breathed carefully after they’d gone for several long seconds, trying to push his anger back as much as possible, before he turned to look at Harry. The young boy had been sat with a small pile of wooden blocks, entertaining himself when Dumbledore had arrived, although now he was looking up at John. There was a little frown on his small face, pulling down his mouth and furrowing his brow. He didn’t understand verbally what had happened, but he could feel the dampened atmosphere, as most young children could.

“Bah?” Harry questioned, looking curious and upset, pushing a fist against his teary eyes. John knelt down in front of him with a soft sigh and stroked back his messy fringe, ran the back of his fingers down his cheeks, and forced as gentle and fond smile as he could. “Bah?”

“It’s fine, Harry,” he said. “Don’t you worry about it; everything will be alright.” He poked Harry on the nose, making him giggle sweetly, erasing the trembling pout and crumpling frown.

Just as John was giving Harry’s neck and stomach a tickle, trying to distract him and change the air, change his mood, there was a faint sound outside the room and almost instantaneously John heard the unmistakable timbre of Sherlock’s deep voice call his name, before the man in question entered at a slam of the door. It shocked Harry into a flinching jump, widening his expressive gaze and unfortunately bringing back the frown John had wiped away. He didn’t cry though, just pouted unhappily.

With his usual flourish and dramatic flair, Sherlock stormed over, eyes intense and hands gesturing animatedly, “ _Please_ tell me you don’t believe this rot?” he asked outright, only glancing at Harry for a fleeting moment. “I know very little about the man but to do this? It’s ridiculous! It’s absurd! It’s far too _obvious_!”

John looked up at him, jaw twitching, “Are we the _only_ ones who have any sense?” John replied. “Remus?”

“Moo-ey!” Harry immediately crowed in response to the name.

Sherlock snorted in answer and ruffled at his already tangled hair in irritation, looking away, pacing, and then going over to pick Harry up as if he’d done so a thousand times, “Pack his things,” he told John, pulling a soft plush of a deer from his pocket to give to Harry. The boy beamed at it, instantly smitten with the thing. “There’s a place in central London that we—”

“ _Sherlock._ ” Dumbledore was now at the doorway, with a nervous and uncertain Minerva at his back. “There is no need for this. Harry is perfectly safe in our hands, as he has been since the...incident. You have no need to worry or to interfere.”

“No, of course not, you’re only going to drop him at his _Aunt’s_ ,” Sherlock shot back sarcastically as he adjusted Harry on his hip, hitching him higher as if to keep Dumbledore from reaching. “Don’t try and deny it. It’s not difficult to work out. I didn’t need to spy on you to know how your deranged mind works, Dumbledore.”

John squinted in disbelief, fighting the corner of his lip that wanted to curl up as Harry reached for Sherlock’s hair in pure joy, “Don’t be ridiculous, why would-?” He paused, suddenly taking note of Dumbledore’s body language, his features, and how Minerva averted her gaze. “… Are you _insane_?”

“He needs to be with his family,” Dumbledore said as if it explained everything perfectly, and, normally, such a sentence would be all the explanation necessary for a boy who had lost his parents, but John knew better. John knew of Lily’s sister, and it seemed, so did Sherlock.

“We _are_ his family!” Sherlock shot back curtly with a rough swallow and a brief gritting of his teeth when Dumbledore’s eyebrows lifted. “If this is about Lily’s sacrifice, or more possibly your annoying _bond of blood charm_ , then you’re an old fool, Dumbledore. It can not be sealed, can not function, unless a member of the family accepts the boy as his or her own, and from what I know of that _family_ , such a thing is highly unlikely. - And, if I am wrong, if they do in fact accept him, I doubt it will be to a good life. They hate us, do they not? You are all but _condemning_ him if you send him there.”

Dumbledore came forward, shaking his head and smiling gently, “His mother’s sacrifice made it possible to create a bond of blood, and the added protection will do some good. He will be safer. His life will be better, more secured,” Dumbledore said in a quiet, imploring sort of way. “Furthermore, living with a muggle family will keep him sheltered from the fame he has already accumulated. He will live a normal, hassle-free life.”

“Normal? Safer?” John repeated, appalled at the man’s willing blindness. “ _Safer_? Do you have _any_ idea what those people are like? Have you seen them? _Met_ them?” Harry whimpered at the raised tones and buried his face into the crook of Sherlock’s neck, clutching at his new toy with trepidation and stress, while Sherlock patted his small back. “I’m… I’m sorry, Harry, it’s all right.”

Dumbledore held up a peaceful hand and tried to continue speaking, “I understand his life will be difficult at times, but his Aunt does care for him and she will take him, seal the charm, and look after him. Keep him guarded. He will be protected by her, by us, by an ancient magic—”

“Protected from _whom_?” Sherlock asked outright with a narrowed look, his gaze shrewd and hard and piercing. “What do you know? You’re not telling us something—You think _he_ will come back, don’t you? - _How_? When? Why? And why bet everything on some ancient magic until the inevitable? It doesn’t save him from everything. Doesn’t keep him protected for long.” He stepped back with Harry, both hands on him now as the boy sniffled and woefully babbled. “Your logic is unfounded. You are relying on _chance_!”

“I agree with Sherlock, Dumbledore. Petunia’s hated magic ever since she discovered it _existed_ ,” John informed them all. “And that _husband_ of hers--” He almost spat the words. “--is no better. A self-righteous _bully_ of a man. Putting Harry with those people is willful negligence at _best_.”

“He must be protected from all and this is the _only_ way,” Dumbledore tried to reason.

“ _No_ ,” Sherlock replied, steadfast in his opinion. “Lily was smart. Smarter, even, than _you_ at times. I am certain that everything she did, everything she and her husband had planned, was to keep her son safe, regardless of the outcome. - Like the rest of us, she knew that death was at our heels, that there was a high possibility of murder, like so many of our acquaintances have been subjected to. She wouldn’t have agreed to something so stupid, even in her last moments. - He is not staying with those _morons_. He will be safer with people who understand him and the world he has been born into.”

“He will be targeted and in danger if he were to live with anyone else,” Dumbledore told him. “He must go to his family. The bond must be activated. - I had planned to hand him over sooner—”

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock scoffed. “You had a great _many_ things planned, I’m sure.”

John glared at him in the long stretch of silence before heading towards the door, “Should I pack too?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, shifting Harry to his other hip when Dumbledore stepped up to him. “Don’t--”

“He _must_ go with his family. We are protecting him. My priority is to keep him _alive_ ,” he insisted.

“It’s nice to know you have so little faith in us,” John almost sneered, then left the room with one last look at Harry, who was clutching at Sherlock’s coat with tears rolling down his cheeks. Regret pierced him at the sight, but he forced himself to continue up to his room; he could hopefully fix things later.

He could hear Sherlock and Dumbledore sniping at each other, their voices muffled by the distance and walls between John and them as he retrieved a duffle bag with an extension charm embedded into the inner fabric. He made several quick waves of his wand, sending his clothes haphazardly into its depths, along with a small collection of his potions, then gathered the few things he and Minerva had collected for Harry and headed back.

“-- _Please_ listen to reason,” Dumbledore beseeched as Sherlock turned away once John had stepped up to his side, walking out with Harry pressed against his chest. As they went by a worried Minerva he reached out for John’s wrist, ensnaring it tightly, sending the old man a withering glower as Dumbledore followed with a sigh, still trying to convince them. “You _must_ understand—”

“Oh, I understand perfectly,” Sherlock countered briskly. “You are used to being the one in charge, the one with power, the one getting all the admiration. That’s your _weakness_. Your desire to know all, to have all, to be in control of all. It is blinding you to the reasonable. You are letting your own wants take precedence over everything else.”

“ _No_ , that is not—”

Sherlock’s fingers tightened against John’s skin and without any warning John felt the familiar pull at his navel as Sherlock took both him and Harry away from both Professors, and into an empty alley way, “This way,” he muttered as he shifted to tuck a sobbing, dizzy boy under his coat and crossed a road, still holding John’s wrist.

“ _Mummy_ ,” Harry moaned, curling into Sherlock’s chest more, and John winced. He’d already explained what had happened – in a way that a child his age might understand – but the instinct to reach out for a mother remained, and undoubtedly would for some time.

“You don’t have to drag me,” John told his companion, though he didn’t pull away. In truth he needed the firmness of the hold to ground him, to keep him focused on going forward and not looking back.

Giving a distracted hum in response, Sherlock only let go once he had stopped them in front of a black door to knock briskly in a rhythm that seemed oddly specific, “With us both living here, we should be able to afford it,” he said as they waited, glancing down and tickling the little one’s chin. Unfortunately, the boy was in no mood to be played with and swatted Sherlock’s fingers away. “You can go back to retrieve anything you might have left and to end your residency later.”

“We’d better calm him down a bit,” John sighed, upset that he’d helped cause Harry’s distress.

Sherlock hummed again and adjusted him, patting his back, “Have you eaten, Harry?” he asked, glancing fleetingly at John for the answer. John shook his head moments before Harry did so as well and Sherlock gave a very convincing smile, altering the tone of his voice. “Are you hungry? Want some buttered toast?”

John reached to wipe away a welling tear as, after another pause, Harry nodded, “Dumbledore arrived before I could make breakfast,” he explained.

“Yes, well, you can feed him now. There should be enough in,” Sherlock said just as the door opened and a pleasant, friendly looking woman beamed out at them, clasping her hands together at the sight of Harry covered up in Sherlock’s coat. “Ah, Mrs Hudson. _Finally_.”

“Oh isn’t he just precious!” she cooed, giving Harry a little wave of hello, gasping dramatically when Harry showed her the deer toy. “What’s that then?”

“Mrs Hudson, this is Harry and this is John Watson,” he introduced, turning to John and then gesturing between him and the sweet lady with one hand. “John, this is Mrs Hudson, our landlady.”

“Hello, hello! Do come in,” she told him, reaching and taking John’s hand in hers warmly, giving a welcoming handshake. “I’ve just put the kettle on.”

Smiling at the much needed comfort, John allowed Sherlock to step in with Harry first – who had cautiously pulled his face from Sherlock’s chest to look at the new environment – and then followed behind, “It’s nice to meet you Mrs Hudson.”

“And you, Mr Watson! I’ve heard so much about you,” she said as she smiled at him widely and then motioned for them to go upstairs, Sherlock already starting up them two at a time. “Go on up and tell me what you think. I hope it’s to your liking, but there is a bit of a mess and—Don’t run with a baby, Sherlock!”

John thanked the lady again, heading after the pair and shifting the bag on his shoulder. He just managed to catch a glance of Harry, who was now clutching at the stuffed deer as he curled into Sherlock, before he disappeared round the corner. John’s head was in a spin and he felt dazed, as if he was watching from within himself, not believing, not fully knowing what was going on, what life had thrown to him.

The decisions of Dumbledore had always been sound to him, had always made sense. The man was a born leader, a genius, or so he had thought. What could have possessed him to take this route, to think this was right, to fight so hard to have his plan followed through? He said he’d planned on giving Harry to his Aunt sooner and John wondered if he had been unable to because of him, because John had taken precautions, had been involved in both the Potter’s well being and Harry’s. It wasn’t going to be easy, going against Dumbledore, taking care of a young child, and how long would it be for? Had Sherlock developed his own plans?

Once he got to the top of the stairs and stepped through the open door in front of him, he found himself in a very busily cluttered living room. It seemed Sherlock had very recently just moved in. Shelves were covered in wonky rows of books, the chairs and sofa had crumpled cushions haphazardly thrown into their corners, a desk was blanketed with piles of paperwork and unopened letters, and what looked to be a real human skull adorned the mantelpiece beside a very lethal looking letter opener. It was a mess, an absolute mess, and a dangerous nightmare to put a very young kid in, yet it was better than the alternative and John made a mental note to child proof every available surface as Sherlock turned to face him with half a smile, lifting his eyebrows in silent question.

"Were you expecting this?" John asked, setting his bag on the sofa.

“Not this _specifically_ , no,” Sherlock said, signalling between Harry and John with a jerk of his chin. “So, what do you think? Good location, is it not?”

Setting his hands on his hips, John looked around the room again to find all the pros instead of all the cons, noting gratefully the big space under all the disorder, the rug beside a fireplace with a pot of floo powder next to it, and a large kitchen with both magical and an occasional muggle item within, then nodded, “It’s good,” he replied. “ _Very_ good. - Might need to tidy up a bit to give Harry some room, but it’s… spacious.”

“It _is_ tidy,” Sherlock frowned as Mrs Hudson appeared on the small landing behind John, still happy about the whole ordeal but pointedly trying to get Sherlock’s attention with a wiggle of her fingers and a cough. Without taking his eyes from John, Sherlock huffed sharply and scowled, hefting Harry when he bent to point at something on the floor with a babbling coo. “ _What_ Mrs Hudson?”

“Someone’s here to see you,” she told him, thumbing over her shoulder and giving a smiling wince, lowering her voice to a stage whisper as if it was all a secret from the boy. “Shall I show him up?—”

“ _No_ ,” Sherlock cut in brusquely. “No. Tell him to go away. There is nothing to discuss. What he knows, I couldn’t care less, and what he has to say to me, I don’t want to hear.”

“Who is it?” John asked, touching at the handle of his wand in his sleeve. If that man had followed them…

“Nobody important,” Sherlock said flippantly, finally looking at Mrs Hudson, at the landing, as the sound of tapping on the staircase began echoing up at them, signalling the visitor had entered without an invitation. Grinding his teeth, Sherlock turned his body aside, like shielding Harry from harm, and lifted his chin, pushing back his shoulders in a confrontational and almost aggressive manner. The sudden change in mood had John reaching for his wand again.

“Brother mine,” a man with dark neatly combed hair and flashing bright eyes purred as he stepped into view, brushing by Mrs Hudson with a sigh, an umbrella in his right hand used as a walking cane. John knew who it was, despite never meeting him in person. “Must you be so foolish _so_ often?”

“ _Get out_ , Mycroft,” Sherlock said, using great effort to say it without upsetting Harry by changing his cutting tone as quickly as possible, whilst still getting across his seriousness. The boy blinked up at Sherlock, reaching for a thick ring of his hair again with a murmur. “You’ll only be wasting your time if you stay, and as you _love_ to frequently remind me, your time is oh-so- _precious_.”

With a tut, the older Holmes brother continued forward until he was in line with John, “Come now, Sherlock. Be reasonable.”

“I suggest you leave, Mister Holmes,” John said, his fingers curling around his wand, though it was still in his sleeve. Harry shifted a little in Sherlock’s arms at the hostile shift, peeking out at them only to look up at Sherlock again and tug at his shirt, moaning quietly in increasing upset.

Mycroft exhaled slowly and stepped a little closer, “Give me the child and I shall,” was his response, extending a hand briefly and rolling his eyes when Sherlock just hefted Harry a bit higher with a whispered hushing. “You are _very_ lucky that Professor Dumbledore is routinely lenient and will not have you two charged with kidnapping.”

Mrs Hudson frowned with a small huff, hands going to her hips, “ _Kidnapping_ indeed!”

“Young Potter belongs with his next of kin--”

“Oh not this _nonsense_ again,” Sherlock scoffed with a menacing glower, bouncing Harry when he uttered a frightened sob. “Get. Out. Mycroft.”

“Have you _met_ those people?” John demanded quietly, not even bothering to hide his wand any more, though it was pointed at the ground. “Does no one in this _bloody_ country do their research?”

“I pride myself on my detail in enquiry and fact finding. I have all the same information that you do and I still think the boy should go to his family,” Mycroft replied with a condescending sort of smile, “now, hand the child over to me please. I haven’t got all day.”

“Why does this even concern you? This is not your dominion. This doesn’t affect you, not personally nor occupationally, so why are you here?” Sherlock questioned nastily rubbing Harry’s back. “Haven’t you got better things to be doing?”

“It _does_ affect me, it does _concern_ me, because it’s _you_ , Sherlock. I’m looking out for you. It will not do to—”

“I’m adopting him,” Sherlock snapped shortly and quite unexpectedly, leaving John blinking wide in shock and biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from blurting out his surprise. In the thick silence that followed the explosive outburst, Harry cried aloud and shook his new toy in confusion.

“...Sherlock, you _can’t_ adopt him,” Mycroft replied with a loud sigh. “That is pure insanity.”

Sherlock flashed him a complacent grin, “ _Yes_ I can, Mycroft, and I _will_. - I have all the documents. All I need are the correct signatures. Something easy to come by when those in question want nothing to do with this boy,” he said, patting Harry’s back and pressing him in close, as a small arm wrapped around his neck for affection.

John couldn’t stifle a slight smile at the endearing display and then raised an eyebrow at Mycroft, “Why can’t he?”

“You think it’s that _easy_ , that _simple_ , when it comes to this situation, when it comes to _that_ child?” Mycroft asked to them in aggravation, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“ _Yes_ ,” Sherlock replied. “Harry isn’t going anywhere. He’s staying here with me, with _us_ , until I can get his Godfather out of unwarranted and dishonest imprisonment. Something, it seems, _no-one_ is trying to do, despite the mountain of contradictions to the case, to the received accounts.” He lifted his eyebrows at his brother, as if inviting him to disagree, but the older Holmes only clenched his jaw, eye twitching, and so Sherlock’s mouth curled arrogantly. “You know as well as I do that Sirius Black did _not_ do what is claimed. It makes _absolutely no sense_. It doesn’t add up. In fact, it seems awfully _suspicious_ to me. It raises far more questions than it does answers. - Where is his wand, for example? Why wasn’t it checked? Why has no one questioned what he was doing confronting Peter Pettigrew on a muggle street in the first place? Why is no one wondering why he didn’t just kill Harry when he had the chance?”

Mycroft tilted his head, “Indeed. However, until you can _prove_ he did not do what is claimed, then young Potter is to be handed to his immediate family. You will _not_ be allowed to adopt him.”

“What, exactly, do you think would happen if the rest of the wizarding world learn that not only has the--” John made a face in disgust, forcing the words out “--‘The-Boy-Who-Lived’ gone to live with a muggle family, but also an _abusive_ one? And what do you think would happen to Harry while he’s living there, with people who hate magic as much as Grindelwald and Vol… Voldemort hated muggles?” John pinched his nose and tried to cool his bubbling anger, shaking his head and snorting in derision. “Yes, send a child who saw his mother… pass away to live with a family who will only make his trauma _worse_. Well done. _Good thinking_.”

“You say that like his location will be public knowledge, which it clearly will _not_ be,” Mycroft said with an arched eyebrow. “Only a select few will know of the boy’s whereabouts. He will be protected by a myriad of methods. You are being over-dramatic in your concerns. _Both_ of you. - Professor Dumbledore knows the Aunt, knows the family, knows the best course of action. He is not looking at it with emotion, no, that is a disadvantage, instead he is taking the logical step for a child left parent-less with such a thick layer of fame already wrapped about them.” Mycroft held up a hand sternly when Sherlock’s lips twisted into a sneer. “You and Mr Watson are _biased_. Have only heard the worst. There are _always_ two sides to every story, Sherlock, you should know that. You should also know that everyone lies from time to time. Everyone has a warped and selfish view of events that make themselves out to be superior, innocent and not at fault. It is only human nature—”

“She was _not_ lying,” Sherlock uttered through his teeth. “And it was not _only_ word of mouth that we have accumulated this opinion.”

Mycroft huffed, “If this Aunt hated the boy as much as you claim, then she wouldn’t take him in at all, yet she would, and _will_ , for that I have no doubt,” he said with a high level of confidence, too high for someone who knew very little about the person in question. “She and her husband may be against magic and all that it entails, but they are _not_ evil people. They are nothing like whom you compare them to. Not at all. - They may end up not being overly _kind_ to him, but that is all. They will not put him in any life threatening danger--”

“ _I’m_ adopting him,” Sherlock repeated, facing one of the living room windows in anger, jittery and thrumming with irritation. “Or at the very least becoming his guardian and taking over the role of his Godfather, if only until I get his true Godfather back into civilisation. - I fail to see how him living with me is worse than him living with... _them_. If anything he would be _more_ protected here.” He frowned over at Mycroft after a moment of silence and then turned back around, Harry’s eyes now glistening with tears. “Though I really wish someone would enlighten me as to just what, or rather _whom_ , he needs to be protected _from_? Is _his_ comeback so certain? Why? What proof do you have?”

“You know of the prophecy, Sherlock,” Mycroft said in annoyance.

“Yes, and I know very well what I _think_ of said prophecy!” Sherlock retorted, though his eyebrows lowered, bunching tightly while Harry whined in distress at his exclamation. “How do _you_ know of it?”

John, confused, looked between them, “ _Prophecy_?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low to not worsen the atmosphere any further. “This was all because of some stupid _tea leaves_?”

“No, it is far more intricate and reliable than _that_ ,” Mycroft said with a long exhale through his nose, glaring at Sherlock. “Hand me the child.”

“I doubt they’ll want him,” John said, “but if they do, then if you think you can stop us from visiting, from checking on him, then you’re _wrong_.”

Sherlock cupped Harry’s head and bounced the boy again, trying to sooth and defend, “He is staying here until further notice.”

“You _can’t_ do that—”

“If Dumbledore and McGonagall turn up to take him, I will go too. I will go and I will confront the Aunt, informing her of the circumstances and then immediately, _legally_ , get her permission to adopt him,” Sherlock cut in before John could jump defensively to his aid. “I have the paperwork, as I said. Two sets of it. One for the muggle world and one for the wizarding world. I have what I need. I am confident that the Dursley’s will hand him over to me without _any_ trouble.” Sherlock, glaring heatedly, expression tight and sparks flying from the ends of his hair, his clothes, prowled up to his brother to stare him down. “I won’t allow this boy to be dumped at a place that he doesn’t deserve, to live an intolerant life he doesn’t need to live. - The prophecy is vague and farcical, like the rest of them. The blood bond charm is ancient and _unneeded_. And hiding him in a world, with a family, that will be nothing but strangling, is insulting, and could very well end in the destruction of him. You are all stupidly following _chance_. A fate, a destiny, that may not even be _his_. That may lead somewhere different or change entirely.”

Mycroft, face unreadable and eyes sharp and quick as he glanced between them, let out a frustrated breath, “Why does this matter _so_ much to you, little brother?”

Sherlock straightened to his full height, applying a blank mask of his own, and glanced down at Harry from under his lashes, “I dislike injustice, stupidity, and I would rather avoid more deaths,” he intoned in answer, “no matter the form of the death.”

“You cannot look after a child, Sherlock,” Mycroft scoffed, yet he sounded defeated, deflated in the face of Sherlock’s determination and was reaching, grabbing hold of anything sturdy to prove his case. “You can barely look after _yourself_.”

“Yes, well, I won’t be doing this on my own,” Sherlock countered and his eyes were on John within a second, blue and ardent and powerfully persuasive. His gaze both demanding and imploring.

John answered it’s call without hesitation, already having accepted the responsibility the moment Harry had been handed to him, “Or did you think I was here for some other reason?” he asked sarcastically, smiling over at Mrs Hudson who gave a clap of delight in approval. “The Potter’s would not leave their child to grow up unloved and uncared for.”

“So, if you’ll excuse us,” Sherlock added as he walked to John’s side, bumping him in gratefulness, “Harry is hungry and I’m a bit peckish myself.”

Mycroft tipped his head, leaning on his umbrella as he regarded them both once more, a frown of concern and confusion creasing his brow, “What is the point of adoption if he is to be handed to his Godfather _if_ you find the correct evidence to free him?” he questioned. “Adoption is also quite a lengthy procedure, from both sides. It will take more than a few signatures and a folder full of documents to successfully adopt him—Will he take your name? Will he be my nephew?”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose, infuriated, “I _will_ find the evidence to free him,” he bit out, stroking an idle hand through Harry’s ruffled hair when his magic transferred, when it began to flash and crackle with an increasing static charge, standing it on end. “Now, if you would be so kind as to _bugger off_ , we’d all really appreciate it.”

John’s smile turned cold in agreement for a second before turning warmer as he directed it to Mrs Hudson again, “Is there anything in the fridge?”

“I can whip something up for the little lad,” she announced and turned to go back down the stairs, trying to usher Mycroft with her with a sweep of her arms, a proud expression on her face.

Mycroft, however, stayed where he was, “Sherlock, you have no connection to the boy. There is no need to take on this level of obligation. - _Don’t_ fool yourself. Your interest is purely business, as it always is. You’re keen on the mystery of the case. You will take it and focus, and be so involved, so invested in it, that you'll have no will or time to even parent the child you so _desperately_ want to ‘save’. And Mr Watson can not do it on his own. He has his own responsibilities. He is needed more than ever now that the war has ended. The injured witches and wizards require his talents. You will be neglecting him as much as you assume his own Aunt will. - You have not thought this through at all. He is not some stray you can nurse back to health, like—”

“I _know_ that,” Sherlock snapped, magic leaking densely to fill the ceiling, to form clouds of rumbling darkness, scaring Harry into a wailing cry. The masses extended and the temperature of the room lowered, frightening Mrs Hudson into getting her wand out. “ _Leave_. - And tell Dumbledore everything, I do hate repeating myself and will not be doing so once he arrives.”

“ _Sherlock_...”

“ _Good day_ , Mycroft,” Sherlock shouted severely over Harry’s cries, glowering and throbbing with palpable rage.

“You always have been rather, pitiably over-emotional—”

“ _Out_!” Sherlock interrupted, stopped from going aggressively forward by John’s hand to his shoulder. He hissed out an exhale of chagrin and turned his back on Mycroft instead, hushing and soothing Harry as the older Holmes sighed, glanced at John, and then finally let himself be escorted downstairs by Mrs Hudson.

It took a few seconds after the door had closed for John to relax enough to return his wand to the straps under his sleeve, but when he did, he stepped up to Sherlock and leaned around him to Harry with a smile, “What’s that you’ve got there?” he asked once he’d caught the child’s attention, pointing to the deer and then reaching to wipe tears from his ruddy cheeks.

Harry looked at him, sniffling and moaning, and considered the question for a few moments, before holding the stuffed deer out, only to pull it back, “My fuffy.”

John chuckled, “Yes, it is.”

“He wasn’t sent,” Sherlock droned impassively, the oppressive clouds above them dispersing and the frigid consistency to the air lessening. “He must have merely caught wind of it. - He has eyes and ears everywhere unfortunately.” Adjusting Harry, he shrugged out of his coat without disturbing him too much and draped it on the sofa, bouncing Harry with a soft unfurling smile. He then stepped away, walking to the kitchen, and knocked out a chair to sit down, watching as Harry giggled and reached over to slap the table with his free hand, utterly delighted with the new environment. “I’m sure he won’t be our only uninvited visitor. Though when the others will arrive, when they will find us, I cannot say.”

“Should I set up new wards?” John asked, following them to hover by the corner of table.

“No point,” Sherlock said dismissively, keeping hold of Harry’s tiny waist with one hand and reaching for the nearby paper towels with the other to dab at the lingering wetness on Harry’s cheeks, wiping the underside of his nose. He peeked over at John briefly when he was finished, throwing the crumpled wad into the kitchen bin. “I should have told you beforehand what I was planning. Should have made time for it. Forgive me – You don’t have to live here and flat share with me, but I’d appreciate it if you did. I was going to ask you anyway. Before... _all of this_. I’ve known Mrs Hudson for quite a while, though didn’t consider moving in here until later.”

“… You were?”

“Well, it was either you or Lestrade,” Sherlock said with half a smirk and a light-hearted gleam to his eyes.

John snorted out a laugh and sat himself in the chair opposite, “He’d have torn his hair out by the end of a week,” he said, dropping his eyes to Harry, who was grabbing holding of Sherlock’s fingers and shaking the deer at John with a whinging whine, “if it didn’t turn grey first.”

“Hm, I’m sure he’d blame me for his inherited genetics, yes. He already holds me accountable for his frown lines,” Sherlock mumbled, stroking Harry’s stomach in a soothing sweep. He still seemed tense and protective, yet his tone of voice was light and there was no thrum of building magic, of rippling anger and prickly pride. Harry patted the knuckles of Sherlock’s hand in further fussiness, pressing back and turning his head up with an annoyed sigh, a pout pulling out his bottom lip when he went ignored.

“Are you...all right, John? - You knew them before I ever did.”

Smile fading from his lips, John met his gaze, finding it sincere, “I thought I would have time,” he said quietly, sitting back and clasping his hands together. “Time on my own, when I could just…” He looked down at the table with a pang in his chest and clenched his jaw, shaking his head. “No. No I’m not.”

“...Mrs Hudson is a _very_ capable woman. She can look after both Harry and I for the time being,” Sherlock said slowly and a touch awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure on what he was saying or how to say it. “There is a bedroom upstairs. It’s yours. If you need time, time to grieve, you are more than welcome to do that now. I know that some people need to go to another place, another room, to be alone. Need to...to get their head around things in their own way without the surrounding, suffocating presence of others and their pity. - Or that’s what I’m told.” He shot John a very slight smile when their gazes met again and nodded in invitation. “I will call if I need you.”

Opening his mouth to reply, to push the offer away, John was interrupted by Harry squirming on Sherlock’s lap in an attempt to get comfortable, and he stopped. He knew that keeping what he had inside him locked away, the way he was doing, wasn’t healthy and while he was happy to take care of the boy, with the way his emotions had lost their equilibrium over the past couple of days he felt he was going to lose it at any moment.

He nodded, “Thank you.”

Sherlock’s eyes crinkled in reply and then he picked Harry up until he was standing on his thighs, letting the boy spring and jump and stomp to his heart’s content. It was nice to see, a good change from the screaming and crying that John had become too accustomed with since taking care of the orphaned boy. There had been some smiles, of course, though they were few and far between and normally in the presence of Minerva more than himself. John grinned at the wiggling infant, enjoying the difference, the calmness in both Harry and Sherlock, and became taken with delight when Sherlock made the deer toy dance and float distractingly, until Mrs Hudson shuffled into the kitchen with a small plate of food and a glass of milk. Sherlock sat back with Harry as she placed them down, keeping the excited boy still for a few seconds before he came closer to the table and helped Harry pick up the small spoon that Mrs Hudson had provided.

“I warmed up the milk,” she informed them happily as Harry ate a spoonful, smearing food on his mouth and chin in the process with a childish glee. “Such a _gorgeous_ little boy! And _so_ smart too!”

“Don’t over do it, Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock muttered with a roll of his eyes, holding Harry securely, careful not to let him wriggle too much.

John smiled at them, rising from his seat and walking around to rest a hand on Sherlock's shoulder and give it a squeeze, "I'll be back soon," he said, stroking the hair of the messy child and helping Sherlock clear the food dangling from his little chin, before he stepped back, headed out the door and took the stairs up.

He lingered on the fourth step, hearing Harry whining highly at his absence, and swayed on the spot, not knowing how to react, what to do nor if it was actually because of his leaving that Harry was upset. It hurt him, to listen to the distress, but he needed the distance, if only for a moment. So he waited for it to change, for Sherlock’s and Mrs Hudson’s murmuring to sooth and distract the boy, and then continued the rest of the way with heavy footsteps and a heavier heart.

He could still hear Harry's happy mumbling and chewing and giggling at the top, but as soon as he stepped into the bare room beyond, he cast an encompassing silencio to block sounds from escaping, and settled on the bed. At first he just stared at the door, waiting for something to happen, for something to hit him, but it didn't. Not for a good five minutes at least. The walls he had built were weak, but still there, wobbling under the pressure of his emotions, needing a push to finally fall. He drew in a breath as his mind roamed over those nightmarish images that haunted him every time he closed his eyes for the thousandth time and he finally shivered, feeling cold and overcome and shaky.

His hands felt odd, empty, now he wasn't holding the child, touching him, soothing him, lifting him. Empty, cold… and useless. Useless. Merlin, he'd never felt more... Oh James. Lily. The Longbottoms. Sirius. Everyone. And he wasn't... he wasn't…

The first sob broke from his throat like a volcanic eruption, tears flooding his eyes as his chest tightened, body shivering. It was too much. So much, all of it. And there was nothing he could have done. He’d seen so much violence, witnessed so much death, and it was all overflowing, all coming to the forefront of his mind. He’d lost so many friends. So many smiling faces would never smile again. He could just about remember the last time he had seen James and Lily alive, and the memory, the thought of it being the last, hurt like a dagger to the chest.

A particularly loud giggle from below—he didn't know how much time later—suddenly broke him from his stupor, and he choked to a stop, his throat raw, cheeks wet and bed covers ruffled. Releasing the strained fabric from his gripping and trembling fingers, John stood and tried to tidy up, blinking fresh tears from his eyes. He should go back down. Yes, that sounded right. Wiping his face with a sleeve, he cancelled the spell and headed back to the kitchen.

Sherlock seemed to have changed the milk from a liquid into a chewy, jelly-like substance and Harry had a mouth full of it as he reached out playfully for the deer plush, which glowed and ran through the air near him. It went over his head, across the table, and then bumped Harry on the nose with a sprinkle of light. It was a good distraction, John noticed, as Sherlock was clearing Harry’s mouth and chin with wipes that Mrs Hudson handed to him, cleansing the boy of the mess he’d produced from his one short meal. One meal of many more to come. Food was also somewhat splattered on the edge of the table, Harry’s top, Sherlock’s trousers, and the floor under the chair. It was a splendid mess.

Making for the kitchen roll, John blew his nose, sent the group a somewhat watery smile and reached for his bag, pulling Harry's various items out and placing them on the coffee table. It caught the attention of Mrs Hudson, who, though smiling, made her way to John’s side in an effort to help him unpack, then repack the bag as he picked out the boy’s fresh, replacement clothes. It was reminiscent of how Minerva worked with him, teaching, leading, and helping with an experience and wisdom that spoke of her enlightened years.

“Are you all right?” she asked in concern while Sherlock silently looked on from the corner of his knowing eyes. “Perhaps I should serve that tea for us all, hm? Warm us up a bit and calm us down.”

"I'm alright," John told her, selecting a colourful top and soft trousers, but paused as she placed a hand to his back, staring down at the sofa to refrain from looking at her pitying expression. "I'm… I’m getting there."

“I’m sure things will look up soon. Just give it time,” she said in a gentle tone, patting John’s shoulder with a sigh and moving away to take the empty, untidy plate and glass to the sink to wash up, ruffling Harry’s mussed hair as she went by. The boy squealed out an incoherent babble and pushed some of the jellied milk against Sherlock’s mouth until he begrudgingly accepted it. “Things will get better, and not _always_ in how you expect. Life has mysterious ways to heal and continue on, regardless of what came before.”

John just nodded and went back to his seat, settling down and holding the clothes in his lap, smoothing his fingers over the fabric, "... Thanks."

“Here.” After finalising his clean up of Harry’s face and hands, Sherlock held the infant out to John across the table and smiled tensely, hushing Harry when he made an exclamation of offence at being so suddenly handed off. “Take him. I’m going to wash up – Mrs Hudson, scour the floor and table, would you? Thanks.”

“ _Honestly_! - I’m not your housekeeper, you know,” she rebuked with a soapy waggle of her finger, flicking bubbles on Sherlock’s shirt.

John chuckled, moved the clothes out of the way so they’d not get dirty, and took Harry willingly, carrying on the hushing when the boy cried and twisted to look at a retreating Sherlock, watching where he went, "What have you been doing then?" he asked rhetorically though intently, settling the little boy so he was facing him and poking him on the nose, much to his rapid amusement. "You mucky pup. - Hands up!"

“I suppose I’ll need to child proof some things,” Mrs Hudson said, mostly to herself as she continued washing up. “Make sure he can’t toddle off the edge of the stairs— _Merlin_ , I never expected there to be a _child_ here. Never in a million years! - And I almost told Sherlock no, you know. I almost turned the _whole_ idea away. But...well, it wouldn’t be right, would it? Wouldn’t be fair. And it’s clear that the lovely boy is in _very_ good hands with you two.” She threw a grin over her shoulder, eyebrows lifting, and looked at John with a mischievous gleam. “Have you been dating Sherlock long? Probably for several months, yes? I had _no idea_ he had someone! _None at all_! I had hoped, of course, and I knew about you, that he knew you, but I only realised you were involved when he very quickly ran this plan over with me.”

“Uh, _dating_?” John repeated in confusion, having just won the small battle and pulled Harry’s top off to set it aside to be washed. “We’re _not_ … I mean, the war, and… we’ve been busy.”

“Oh yes, of course. Dreadful stuff the war. Really quite horrible. I’m glad it’s over,” Mrs Hudson said as she finished at the sink, dried her hands, and got down on her knees to clear up the split food on the floor and table legs. “And it is over, isn’t it? - A lot more work to do, but with _him_ gone, things are much better. I’m so happy about that.”

John blinked at her and turned to work on Harry’s bottoms, at which point Harry decided it would be a wonderful idea to start wriggling about and pointing at things, wanting to get away, “Aren’t we all.”

“I couldn’t believe it at first, when I heard that You-Know-Who was dead and the war was finished. It’s been going on for _so long_ and there has been so many ghastly murders...” she went on as she scrubbed and mopped, taking Harry’s attention enough for him to cease his fidgeting. “I mean, I know Sherlock likes a good murder, a good mystery, but even _he_ wasn’t keen on it all.”

“Too much stupidity,” John muttered with a nod, managing to pull Harry’s bottoms off, sniff at his nappy, which was thankfully still empty, and finally moved to change the boy. “I think someone’s having a bath later.” Harry just giggled at him in reply and tugged at his jumper, drooling and chewing on the ear of the deer, expressive eyes so much like the eyes of his mother. Intelligent and empathetic. He peered into them, missing her, feeling guilty and down, and followed when Harry glanced aside at Sherlock as he returned.

“He can bathe tomorrow,” Sherlock murmured walking through to the mirror above the fireplace to adjust the collar of his shirt. “Don’t forget that we may very well be having more visitors today. Be prepared. We might have to go and visit the dreaded Aunt and Uncle to get their recoiling blessing.”

John gritted his teeth, just managing to pull the leg of Harry’s fresh trousers on over his wiggling foot, “He shouldn’t have to go there.”

“ _I_ know that, and _you_ know that, but there are some asinine, stubborn, idiotic wizards that think differently. - All because of some _prophecy_. Some _estimation_ of a future that may or may _not_ happen,” Sherlock snorted, wandering back over and rolling up his shirt sleeves. “It is _ludicrous_ how reckless they are when they’re desperate, how ignorant and dense when it has no relation to them and their lives.”

“Wizards are worse than sailors when it comes to their superstitions,” John noted in displeased agreement, pulling Harry’s other trouser leg on and fastening them in place. Helping Harry to sit up again, John then reached for the fresh top, stroking at the boy’s chin to get his attention. “Hands up!”

Sherlock hummed and turned to help Mrs Hudson from her crouched position, patting her back gently, guiding her around toward the landing, “Thank you, Mrs Hudson, you may go.”

“Oh _may_ I? You’re too kind!” she retorted sarcastically, though she was grinning and gave his cheek a stroking pet. “All right dears. I’ll leave you to it – If anyone comes by for you, I’ll just send them up, yes? No point turning them away, I suppose.”

“Right you are,” Sherlock said, strolling to the desk in the living room and rummaging through the drawers once she’d stepped out. He bent to peer into the back of each and then ducked to hunt through a teetering pile of newspapers and behind a mound of folders, then he went to the bookshelves, snapped through some books, and took hidden papers from beneath them. “Of course I wouldn’t be against you making it _awfully_ difficult or perhaps even stalling them. Just for the fun of it.”

“There we go!” John said with a grin, having wrangled the shirt over Harry’s arms and head. He lifted him, letting the boy stand up on his legs, and caught the deer when it tumbled away. “How’s that? All good?”

“Aw goo’,” Harry repeated with a nod, proceeding to reach for the deer and chew on one of its ears again. Pointing at Sherlock with a loud hum of interest, Harry then swayed, pressing against John’s chest and hooking one arm about his neck, content and warm and most of all, safe.

“I’ll do my best, loves,” Mrs Hudson told them. “I can’t promise anything though. These smart types have a way of weaselling out of any predicament they find themselves in.”

“Thank you for all the help, Mrs Hudson,” John called to her before she left entirely, holding Harry close.

“You’re more than welcome!” she replied with a wave, shutting the door to the living room and kitchen so Harry couldn’t get out if he was let down. Not that John would do so. Not yet, not until things were tidied away far more than they had been.

Sherlock paced in front of the fireplace with a flutter of flying and whizzing papers, much to Harry’s amusement, “You agree with me about everything, right?” he abruptly asked as he looked through documents, throwing some aside into messy heaps. “About the charm, the prophecy, _whatever_ stupid little thing they keep adding to try and reason the unreasonable? That there is no proof to anything being concrete? Not Voldemort’s apparent future resurrection, not the chance his Aunt will take him, not the ancient charm working to protect him, and not the destiny of ‘the boy who lived.’”

“I don’t know enough about those sorts of things to really give an informative opinion,” John replied, passing the deer to Harry when it was dropped again, who shook it, babbling and tucking himself against John’s neck.

Sherlock rolled his eyes but continued on his rant, “It’s _ancient_ magic, John. Everything! What Lily did, what Dumbledore added, and what he is basing his thinking on. Some of it _so_ old that hardly anyone knows about such things. - I, for one, barely knew this could work. That _she_ could do what she did and why it has never come up before. Many mother’s love their children. Would do anything, try anything, give anything to protect them. Many would sacrifice themselves without hesitation, choosing their young lives over their own. Yet so many children have died, so many parents have risked their lives to save those now dead children, and nothing. _Absolutely nothing_. Until now, until _her_. It isn’t something that’s regularly happened in history either, that has been documented, not as far as I can tell,” he said.

“So knowledge on it, on it _all_ , is very limited,” John continued with a nod, “and Dumbledore wants to trust in all this unknown, virtually untested, mostly undocumented magic and theories. In _luck_. And expects it will be enough to protect him.”

“Yes. _Exactly_. - If Dumbledore truly knew more about this, more than he is letting on, then he needs to provide proof of it. Not that it will change my mind, because I will still go through with the proceedings to adopt Harry until his Godfather can take him, regardless of the evidence. And if not me, then _definitely_ you—Perhaps it _should_ be you more than me, actually,” Sherlock muttered to him as he neatly piled things together and then sighed, waving away the remaining papers to look at John. “Thankfully Dumbledore doesn’t have enough power to sway everyone within the legal system in both the muggle and wizarding world. If he did, we wouldn’t be in this situation.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I don’t believe in the ‘ _chosen one_ ’ of any destiny. I don’t believe events are meant to happen, that we’re drawn to specific people, that all our fates are set to a certain path. I just _don’t_. It’s ludicrous to think so.”

John nodded, looking down at Harry again, at the new life, new responsibility that he’d be leading now. Was this set in stone in _his_ destiny? Was he always going to find Harry, to look after him? If so, what did that mean? How did that fit with Harry’s supposedly fixed future? Becoming a parent… it wasn’t exactly something he’d planned on doing any time soon, even if he did love children, but for Harry he would do it. For Lily, and for James.

“I take it those are the papers?”

“Yes,” Sherlock answered with a tap of his fingertips. “Obviously, as my annoying brother helpfully mentioned, it’s not as simple as just signing a few documents, but it’s a start. It shows that the Dursely’s do _not_ want him and that we—that _you—_ evidently _do_. It works in our favour, backs things up, and creates cold, blatant facts that _cannot_ and should not be ignored.”

"Yeah," John muttered and rose from his seat, shifting Harry to his side as he walked into the front room and chose one of the two arm chairs, the clearest of them, to sit on. "Are you sure about this? - Raising Harry I mean."

Sherlock shot him an abrupt and narrowed look, “Do you _really_ think I’d do this if there was _any_ other way? - And we are not ‘raising’ him, we are babysitting him until his idiot of a Godfather can take him off our hands. I’m not adopting him because I _want_ a child, but to stop unstable ineptitude and correct what is corrupt,” he said a little too brisk for John’s liking, irate as he glared in disdainfulness and stepped over to loom above him. “I want you to understand something, John. I am doing this for different reasons to what you might have assumed. It is work. It is a _debt_ to them. It is a game of chess between me and that old man, those higher ups, that has been spanning years. _Nothing_ else. - I may play off the fact that there is more to it, but there most certainly is _not_.”

John’s own gaze narrowed in return as Harry started to chew on the deer’s nose, glancing at them with a forming frown, “ _Right_ ,” he said. “Of course. How _stupid_ of me to think otherwise.”

“You only have to look at this flat to realise where my loyalties lie, what matters to me,” Sherlock told him, turning his back to fiddle with the documents again. “We won’t be looking after Harry for long. This is temporary at best. - Just as soon as I get Sirius Black out and he tells me what he knows...what he kept from us...” He glanced over his shoulder at Harry, who blinked, smiled and squealed at the attention. “He belongs with Sirius Black.”

“Of _course_ he does,” John agreed, just barely keeping himself from snapping, and took a breath to calm down. “Harry deserves that. - I’m just talking about… just in case, you know?”

“You doubt me?--I _will_ get him out,” Sherlock insisted with an almost hissing tone. “It’s just a matter of following the clues, finding all the missing pieces of the puzzle. Something I am quite good at.”

Harry moaned, looking between the two of them a little fearfully, so John turned back to the boy and put on a smile, “It’s okay. We’re just worried about Uncle Sirius.”

“Pah-foo,” he mumbled conversationally, brow furrowed in seriousness. “Unca Pah-foo!”

“Ah yes, sorry, I mean Uncle Padfoot,” John amended with a nod. “But we have to solve a puzzle before we can see him. It’s a very _difficult_ puzzle, but thankfully Sherlock’s _very_ good at them, so you’ll be able to see Uncle Padfoot in no time!” He bopped Harry’s nose again, making him giggle and wave the deer, snuggling in against John’s chest.

“Hopefully sooner rather than later...” Sherlock murmured, unable to stay still, moving around the living room as he sorted and filed things away, muttering to himself and then spinning on the spot with a click of his fingers, pointing as he looked around. “We need a bed. A cot.” He grabbed for one of the kitchen chairs at the last minute and took out his wand. “This will do...”

“We can’t keep it in _here_ ,” John told him with a scowl of disapproval, rubbing Harry’s back.

Giving an elegant flick, Sherlock transformed the chair into a wooden crib with a creak and a clatter, “Put it wherever you want it,” he shot back as he looked over his handiwork with approval, tapping, pressing and fiddling with it. “I didn’t specify where it could go. I leave it in your _capable_ hands.”

John huffed through his nose – an action Harry tried to copy and ended up blowing snot over his upper lip, forcing John to wipe it up – and then turned away from the arrogant wizard, “What do you think Harry? Upstairs with me, or with Sherlock?” he asked, pointing in clarification as he stood up with him. Harry looked in both directions with a hum and continued to chew on the deer’s nose, not answering John in the slightest.

“Alright then.”

John looked at the stairs to his bedroom and then down the corridor from the kitchen where he’d seen Sherlock disappear down previously. He didn’t exactly know where Sherlock’s room was yet, so he supposed it would be best to at least check and strolled past the man in question, waiting for him to put up some sort of resistance or stop him in his tracks with a well aimed sneer. When none came he glanced to find Sherlock changing the colour of the wooden cot with concentrated taps and swirls and pokes of his wand.

“What?” Sherlock asked, briefly glancing up and then waving a hand to usher John on and stop him from speaking. “I don’t mind. What’s mine is yours.”

John blinked back at him in shock before smiling, grateful for Sherlock's surprising kindness, and continued on towards the other rooms.

The first door John came upon led to a bathroom, which would definitely come in handy. It was immaculately clean and smelt like lemons, the shower curtain aesthetically folded to one side, the cabinet mirror gleaming and blemish-less, and the toilet brilliantly white, inside and out. John assumed much of it was down to Mrs Hudson, but was appreciative anyway, wondering how long it would remain spotless with a toddler on hand. He turned in a small circle, letting Harry look and pointing out a few things for him to name, before he paused in front of an adjoining glass door leading to what must have been Sherlock’s bedroom judging by the warped display on the other side.

Patting Harry’s bum and adjusting his hold on the clinging boy, John opened the door and stepped through. The room had barely any mess in it yet, beyond a few boxes, and with the close proximity to both the bathroom and the kitchen, John knew that it would be a better idea to keep Harry here for the time being.

Decision made, John headed back to the main living space, “You don’t sleep much, right?”

Sherlock looked from John to Harry and back, shaking his head with a sigh, “No, I don’t. Nor will I spend much time in my bedroom anyway. Not while I have a case, so you’re welcome to it.”

John narrowed his eyes a little at the acknowledgement of such an unhealthy habit, but simply nodded and settled Harry on the sofa, pulling one of his other toys – a teddy bear – from the bag and waving it in front of the delighted child, who instantly reached for it and pulled it to his chest, though the deer remained in his clutches as well. With a few flicks of his wand, John transported the now finished and nicely decorated crib through to Sherlock’s room, dropping it in an open, available space near the bed, and returned, where he found Harry had crawled over to his things and taken a dive into them. John barely restrained a laugh at the sight.

“I give it until the late afternoon at the latest,” Sherlock said at random from his place at one of the living room windows. “And then, I’m sure, he’ll drop by. Though whether by floo or normal means, I’m unsure...”

“Normal means,” John said, giving him a sideways glance. “He wouldn’t trust you not to brick the chimney up.”

Sherlock frowned with a snort, “I’m not _that_ stupid,” he said lowly, giving a sniff of distaste and folding his hands behind his back. “Or vindictive... Despite how much I dislike the man.”

Harry, in the meantime, seemed to have decided that the room wasn’t messy enough and had started to throw the various clothes and toys as far as he could, “… He’s taking after you already,” John muttered in mirth.

“I don’t make a mess for no reason,” Sherlock replied in disagreement, glancing over with a small amused smile, eyeing the radius of Harry’s invasion with a loud, playful tut.

Harry screamed joyfully at him and threw a rubber ball, pointing when it hit Sherlock’s legs, “Baw!” he exclaimed, clapping when it rolled back under the coffee table and reaching for it over the edge of the sofa, prompting both John and Sherlock to immediately rush to keep him from falling off. The sudden movement and quick capture by John, caused Harry to sulk until the ball was given back. He threw it again a moment later, only this time, fortunately, it didn’t come back, so he turned for something else instead.

“We should clear some space for him to play,” John said, trying to calm his panicked, racing heart.

“ _Or_ ,” Sherlock started with a sigh, closing the distance to pick Harry up, “we could just move him somewhere else, somewhere with a lot more clear space than _here._ ” Collecting a few of Harry’s toys and a blanket, Sherlock gestured for John to follow and carried the boy and his things out to the landing, then upstairs to what would soon become John’s bedroom. “Come along!”

“Merlin’s beard...” John sighed, but hurried after, jumping half the steps to keep up and reaching for Harry’s extended hand.

“The living room will go through ‘childproofing’ later,” Sherlock shot over his shoulder. “It’s not exactly the top priority right now.”

“Yeah,” John agreed, slipping past to enter the room first and pull the duvet from the bed, setting it on the ground. “I’ll look after him. You go… do what you’re doing.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Sherlock replied with an appreciative nod as he carefully put Harry down, laying out the toys and folding the blanket up beside him. “Best you remain here when Dumbledore shows up too. Lower the chance of him taking Harry and running.”

As Sherlock straightened up and turned to go, Harry fussily tried to follow, seemingly reluctant to be left alone and looking up almost fearfully, making a wobbling whining sound. John sat next to him quickly, reaching to comfort and distract him, and smiled as Harry brightened again and settled in to play. John sent Sherlock a look at the child’s reaction and rubbed at his back a little. It was an issue and they both knew it. A new problem that hadn’t come up with his time staying with Minerva.

“He’ll grow and forget,” Sherlock muttered under his breath in response and then gave Harry’s head an awkward pat as he headed out. He lingered only a second, staring down the staircase when Harry cried out to him, but ultimately shut the door and left.

Staring after him for a few moments, happy at viewing that hesitation in the man and knowing what it meant, how that felt, John soon turned his full attention back to the now bawling boy and shushed him, picking him up in his arms, “It’s all right, it’s okay. He’s just downstairs, that’s all. He’s _very_ busy getting ready to solve that puzzle, to get your Uncle Padfoot back to you—That’s right, it’s okay, Harry. Calm down. He’s _just_ downstairs. - Now, what shall we do then?”

For the entire morning they played and crawled about in that room. John tickled Harry, told him stories, wove magic images into the air and animated his toys to keep him entertained. It was coming close to midday when the first yawn appeared and John realised it was coming close to nap time, so he set the boy on the bed and, closing the curtains, kept careful watch over him as he slipped gradually, contentedly, and smiling into slumber.

It was ten minutes after Harry had fallen completely asleep that he heard knocks on the door, movement downstairs, footsteps in a familiar tread, followed by voices, which steadily rose in volume. It was Dumbledore and Sherlock, arguing and snapping. Words thrown and whipped around like spiked, attacking spells, facts passed between them like a ticking bomb. John couldn’t hear what they were saying, not properly, not enough to make sense of it all, but he knew what it was about, what Sherlock was wielding, what Dumbledore was returning, and the main subject matter.

As the time went on, as their voices got louder, more insistent, more aggressively stubborn, John heard words like 'sacrifice' and 'obscurial,' and shifted with unease. He knew though, that if he had been down there, if he was involved, it would only get more heated, more deafening, and the safety of Harry would have been jeopardised.

With the innocent boy in mind John, keeping his wand to hand, turned to face the door, in case anyone appeared there without his permission, but it seemed that the conversation had suddenly come to a peaceful end. He listened as the same footsteps then made their way back down, the sound of the front door opening and closing, and then waited for a breath or two until he put his wand away with a sigh. It was astonishing how quickly it had all happened, how easily Dumbledore had apparently given in, stepped down, and agreed to leave Harry with them after all his talk of charms, bonds, and blood, that John wavered in disbelief, debating if it was even real.

Deciding he wanted to know what had happened, John carefully moved Harry into his arms – the boy moaning a little before grasping a hold of his jumper – and headed back to the living room.

When he entered, Sherlock turned from where he was leaning over the desk, “Put him to bed properly,” he said lowly, signalling to his bedroom with one hand as he rifled through papers with the other. “We can talk afterwards.”

John dawdled a second, wondering what had just occurred and if it was good, if it was bad, if Harry was safe, but decided it was better to find out without the snoozing boy in his arms, against his chest. With a sigh and a nod, he turned and collected one of the cushions from the sofa, another one of Harry’s blankets, and headed to Sherlock’s room to gently and cautiously place him into his new gracefully transformed cot. Knowing he would most likely wake later at some point, John left the door open a crack and headed back, having waved his wand at the curtains, the walls and the window, making sure light was dimmed and wards were up.

“… So?”

“It took a while. A lot of pointless back and forth. Prophecy this and prophecy that, and an abundance of ‘Harry will benefit from the choice later in life,’ _rubbish_ ,” Sherlock started off ranting, a dark, disgusted glare coming over his face as he looked through more and more documents. “Dumbledore can’t be sure of _anything_. It’s a 50/50 chance whether the choices we decide now will help or hinder him later on. Harry isn’t the only child that fits the prophecy as far as I’m aware. - That Longbottom child, for instance. - I find it _ridiculous_ people so easily forget about him. I realise that he was not the boy that Voldemort finally chose, but what does that really mean? What does that _matter_? And until the _real_ traitor is found and Harry is reunited with his Godfather, he should be as happy and as safe as we, the order, can provide.” He sighed roughly through his nose and waved a whipping hand through the air, shoving it all aside and giving a disappointed sneer. “All in all, Dumbledore relented to me. He said several more nonsensical, unreasonable, unwarranted estimations and opinions, but they were _irrelevant_. We have him. We _won_. We can look after him until I get Sirius Black out of imprisonment.”

An absurdly long breath of relief escaped through John’s lips at the overall conclusion, a weight he should have realised was weighing down his shoulders lifting, “ _Thank God_.”

“Now,” Sherlock said around another sigh, “the both of us have some papers to read, glare at, and sign. - But _not_ tonight. Tomorrow would be best.” He slapped at a small pile of papers, of files slotted with documents, and then glanced at John with a tight, small smile. “You need as much sleep as Harry does. It can wait a couple of hours. Give you the time to let it sink in, let you freshen and re-evaluate your thoughts.”

“Right,” John agreed, staring passed his shoulder, into nothing. “Right…”

“...You realise that you will be looking after Harry the most out of the two of us. -- With Mrs Hudson on hand, of course,” Sherlock told him, shifting and then stepping over to John, swaying into John’s line of sight and ducking to connect their eyes. “I need to go looking, to visit both scenes, to work on Sirius Black’s case.”

John hummed, finally figuring out the thought his mind had steadily been coming to and frowning in shock, “I’m… essentially going to become Harry’s new dad,” he muttered.

Sherlock cocked his head aside with a grunt of slight acceptance, “I suppose you could say that, yes. - _Temporarily_.”

“Never thought I’d have a kid at this age,” John joked, or tried to as a feeling of swirling sickening guilt rose within him. This wasn’t his right, his role, it was Sirius’. Sure, it was temporary, but it still felt wrong.

“Mm. Yes, well...” Sherlock shrugged and glanced in the direction of his bedroom, pursing his lips in brief contemplation. “I doubt he’d acknowledge that fact or even understand it. And if he does, if he starts mistakenly referring to you as his father, just correct him if it makes you so uncomfortable. You might be acting like a parent but you aren’t one.”

Somehow that made him feel worse and he winced, “Right,” he said, again, then moved to sit on the sofa, rubbing the gathering sleep from his eyes.

“I thought you’d be happy?” Sherlock asked with a tone of confusion. “Dumbledore has given in, he’s not going to his horrible Aunt, and Sirius Black’s freedom is guaranteed, isn’t that something to celebrate?”

“Yeah, it is,” John agreed, resting his elbows against his knees and grinding his teeth, exhaling through his nose, unable to still the inner turmoil. “It should _never_ have happened though. _Any_ of this. And now it has it’s all just... a _mess_. - It’s going to take a while to get my head around everything.”

“It’s not as big a mess as it could have been,” Sherlock told him offhandedly, going back to sorting through his things for a moment or two longer. Seeming unperturbed by it all and actually quite smug now that things had gone his way, now that he had more control and had evidently shouted Dumbledore down. “Could have been a lot worse.”

“Which is probably why I haven’t completely broken down yet,” John muttered and leaned back, looking through towards Sherlock’s room. He hoped Harry wouldn’t have another nightmare during his nap, though it was bound to happen.

After a minute of thickening silence, Sherlock fidgeted uneasily, twisting to look at John, to connect their gazes, “You should go get some sleep. Leave unpacking for tomorrow,” he said quietly.

John nodded, staring back at him, taking in Sherlock’s soft expression and gentled posture, and heaved himself up to pull some pyjamas from his bag, “He gets nightmares,” he warned. “Calms down if you sing to him.”

“I’ll get Mrs Hudson for that,” Sherlock said with an inclined head of recognition. “Sing anything? Or a certain song?”

John shrugged, “I’ve been going for ‘You Are My Sunshine’ mostly, though as long as it’s someone singing something, he doesn’t seem to mind. McGonagall sang a Scottish song at some point and he didn’t take long to fall asleep after that, so… yes, anything really,” he said and made his way towards the landing, but stopped before he’d gone completely, turning to grab a hold of Sherlock’s gaze once more. “… Thank you. For _all_ of this.”

“It wasn’t just me. You are just as involved. You did this as much as I did,” Sherlock replied with a hitch of one shoulder and another small smile. “Without you, I doubt we would be here. Definitely doubtful Harry would be. With you here with me, with him, it makes everything a lot smoother—I am not overly trusted with such things, as I’m sure you’ve become aware.”

John smiled softly in return, “You’re already better than you think, Sherlock,” he said, then made his way to his room before the man had time to answer, slumping in his new bed.

He was asleep within minutes.


	4. Chapter Two

_It was dark, a moonless night, the buildings empty, the lamps dead. Godric’s Hollow, with it’s houses and streets and graveyard. John was stood in the middle of the road, staring at the Potter’s home, the door an open gaping maw, the darkness a thick curtain within. He wanted to turn away, to escape the sight he knew was coming, but Harry’s cries from within pulled him forwards, as though he were tethered to them._

_He walked down the path, leaving footprints in ash as the cries grew steadily louder and louder, until he crossed the threshold, where silence hit him like a wall. It was pitch black for several moments, and then James’ dead face crowded his vision, glazed eyes holding blame and a betrayal._

“ _What have you done?”_

_Before John could answer, the image was gone, and James’ body was lying on the floor, crooked and lifeless. Harry was in his arms, but his body was limp, and when John looked at his face, it was just as empty as his father’s._

“ _No…”_

“ _What have you done?” Lily was standing at the top of the stairs, as beautiful as always, frowning, confused, betrayed, as she looked at John._

“ _I… I didn’t…”_

“ _What have you done?”_

_James was rising from the ground now as Lily descended the stairs in morbid cracks and clicks._

“ _I…”_

“ _What have you done?”_

“ _What have you-?”_

 

John woke with a gasp, body rigid and brow slick with sweat as he stared up at the dim light of dawn that had crept through his window. He panted several deep breaths before realising exactly where he was, that he was in a new flat, in a new home, with Harry and Sherlock.

Harry.

He sat up, pushing the sheets from the tangled mess it had weaved around his legs, and all but fell to the floor as he stumbled out of bed. When he regained his footing, wheezing and panting and close to hyperventilating, he headed out of his room and down to Sherlock’s. He needed to see, needed to be there, needed to rush straight to Harry’s crib and hear him, hold him, watch him, protect him. He should have taken Sherlock’s bed, should have stayed and been near enough to know that he hadn’t been taken, hadn’t died in his sleep, hadn’t somehow managed to climb out and wander off. Anything could have happened, anything at all, and he hadn’t been there, hadn’t been able to save the precious thing his friends had left, the one thing that carried parts of them, the one thing John could hold close.

Once he’d tripped his way down the stairs and sprinted through the kitchen, toward the open glass door leading to the short corridor, Sherlock’s bedroom seemed to loom out in front of him, the walls either side extending and stretching while he lurched across the floor as quickly as he was able, like yet another nightmare, the shadows and light of the early morning twisting and morphing everything it touched, everything before his sore eyes and under his thumping feet. It made him sick, made his head ache, but he couldn’t stop, he wouldn’t stop, and so he pushed on into battle, ready to counter any spell shot his way.

It was when he stumbled into the bathroom door frame that he heard it. A sob. A sniffling, muffled, sob of a petrified child, the same as from his nightmare and panicking that he was still somehow in that dream, that something horrible was about to happen, John picked up the pace, sprinting forward and reached out for the door, for the door handle. However, just before his fingers could touch it, it moved and the door opened to reveal the dark, gaping, haunting interior and then, to John’s relief, Sherlock, who was standing with Harry cradled in one long arm.

The boy was snuffling against Sherlock’s chest softly, body turned into him and arms and legs curled up, “ _In_ ,” Sherlock ordered John with a whisper, motioning into the warm and gloomy bedroom.

John could barely breathe and just stared at Harry as he took the several shaky steps needed to enter, staring at Harry’s tears and the glistening tracks they had made on his ruddy cheeks, listening to his hitching breaths and the soft shift of fabric as he squirmed, then reached out to touch his shaking back. Alive. He was alive. Oh, thank Merlin. Thank God. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

Sherlock hooked one of his slender, warm feet around John’s leg to tug at him impatiently, enough to nudge him further, “Get _in_ ,” he repeated with a huff as John took a few more, stumbled, steps. Sherlock then moved behind him and closed the door gently with his hip, hushing Harry when he made a low whimpering sound at the movement, wiggling in distress in the crook of his arm. “Calm yourself. It’s all right...”

Just as Sherlock turned from the door, John immediately stepped close, crowding him as he leaned over Harry, and ran his hands through his messy hair, over his back, shushing him with a wet voice – something that finally brought the tear tracks running down his own cheeks to his notice, which he quickly wiped away, “It’s okay Harry,” he said. “I’m here. Sherlock’s here. _We’ve_ got you.”

“Take him,” Sherlock murmured, patting John’s arm with his free hand as he began to adjust Harry so he could offer him over. “Here. He will probably prefer you to me.”

“ _No_ ,” John muttered and shook his head, taking hold of Sherlock’s arms instead to reposition them, moving them so he was holding the child in a more enveloping and comforting manner. “Keep him safe.” He looked up into Sherlock’s face then, for the first time that night, uncaring of the tears still in his eyes, and held onto his arms, swaying the both of them from side to side as he started to hum. Notes and rhythm random as he tried to grab hold of a song, any song, within his stormy head.

“John… just take him,” Sherlock sighed, shifting with him after a few seconds of no reply, shooting John a look from under his brows as he did so. Harry peered up at them both and hiccuped with a languid blink, a few stray tears wetting his cheeks, small hands grabbing for anything within reach, and Sherlock cleared his throat lowly to get John’s attention. “When he’s back asleep, you will stay here. Sleep here. Stop all this nonsense.”

John just nodded in reply, glancing back down at Harry again and running his fingers through his hair once more, “ _She left her baby lying here, lying here, lying here, she left her baby lying here to go and gather blaeberries_ …” he sang, recalling the tune from the times Minerva had sung him to sleep, though he didn’t know much more than that. He didn’t stop singing until Harry had gone limp in Sherlock’s arms, just in case.

Sherlock’s presence, his company, was different to the company he had kept with Minerva. She had been nearby John and Harry first, though it always seemed like she looking after them both, looking after John who was in turn looking after Harry, like a teacher watching over two children in play. Whereas with Sherlock, it felt like they both had the same agenda. Sherlock didn’t seem to be coddling John in any way. He didn’t send John sympathetic glances with a pursed mouth or constantly look at him and hover around him like he’d break apart into a thousand pieces if left alone. Minerva McGonagall was a lovely woman and had been a superb professor at school, a fantastic pillar to lean on during the war, but John couldn’t stop noticing that the atmosphere around her, the aura, and the difference compared to what came with Sherlock, was massive. She saw him as a boy and Sherlock saw him as a man.

It felt like he didn’t have to hold himself together by the frayed threads and bandages that he’d been forced to wrap himself in, but it also gave him space to think, to breathe, to stop worrying every other second that he was doing something wrong. It was… good. It took more work, and it hurt more, but it was a good kind of hurt, the kind he needed to heal and learn and live.

Turning away, Sherlock carried the slumbering child to the cot, carefully placing him down into it, and covered him with the blanket, adjusting the soft glowing deer into one corner, “Right – _Get in_ ,” he whispered to John, signalling to the bed.

John looked at it, then back at Sherlock, “What about you?”

“I’m busy,” he replied with a tone to his voice that implied a roll of his eyes. “And I can always kip on the sofa or take _your_ bed.”

“Alright then,” he said with a wince, knowing he should have thought of that, and sat down on the bed with a long sigh, pulling at the sheets so he could slip beneath them, though not before looking back at Harry once more. “Okay…”

“I’ll be in the living room,” Sherlock told him as he moved away. “There is a glass of water on the bedside.” Giving John a glance he slipped out the door, barely making a noise as he did so, and shot him a small, friendly smile. “Sleep well.”

Now that the water had been pointed out, John realised just how thirsty he was, and drained the thing in less than two seconds. Coughing and spluttering and gasping. Though he didn’t exactly feel better after, he was glad his throat wasn’t dry from singing any more at least. Checking on Harry just one more time, he settled down into the bed and once again let sleep drag him away, slowly, sluggishly, with a difficult haul. It was better being with Harry though, miles better, and he let that knowledge calm him whenever his heart raced in anxiousness.

It must have been several hours later when he next woke, as the room was much brighter than it had been when he’d finally closed his eyes, though he had no definite way of telling how much later it was, as he couldn’t see any clock in the room – not at first glance anyway.

Vaguely, he could hear the rumbling of Sherlock’s voice in one of the rooms beyond, though couldn’t understand what it was he was saying, and whom it was he was speaking to, so got up after a few seconds to check, ready for anything, especially if it was Sherlock’s pestering brother. First, after checking on the babe, he slipped into the bathroom through the adjoining door to wash his face, and then moved quietly to open the other door, to better hear his new flatmate while keeping the bedroom and Harry’s cot in the corner of his eye.

From the sounds of it, Sherlock was apparently talking to himself, because John heard no reply to any of the sentences, long and short, that Sherlock mumbled into the open air. No signs of annoyance either. Nothing but the sound of pacing feet, one pair of pacing feet. John sighed, half-amused, and crossed his arms, leaning up against the wall. He had witnessed Sherlock doing something similar a few times during their association in the past and so it wasn’t as strange as it might have appeared if they had been mere, and new, acquaintances. Many had called him mad or worse. In fact, John remembered a lot of cruel names being slung in Sherlock’s direction throughout is time hearing of and knowing of the man. Eccentric, Sherlock was, but mad? John didn’t think so.

He listened a bit more to his incoherent rambling and then turned back to lean over Harry, reaching in to pull the blanket aside to check his sleeping face. He looked peaceful and John was grateful, wondering how much he’d fussed last night before John had rushed down in his own suffering.

“I’m going out.” Sherlock had somehow trailed from the living room to the bedroom without making so much as a sound, voice pitched low and hair an absolute wild tangled nest. His sudden presence almost made John shout out. Almost.

Instead he just bit the inside of his cheek and sighed, “Right,” he said. “Sirius?”

“Not overly so, no. - Don’t wait up,” Sherlock replied and disappeared down the corridor in a flourish of dark fabric.

John glared after him and turned back to Harry, kneeling down beside the crib, “Sherlock’s a funny one, isn’t he?” he said softly, watching Harry’s eyelids flutter and his chest raise and fall gently. “Heart’s in the right place though… always has been I think.”

He listened out, trying to determine when it was that Sherlock went completely, and wondered how many times that he’d been out to both the Potter’s house and the street Sirius had allegedly blown up in the night. John still couldn’t believe that had happened. It was ridiculous. How could Remus, how could anyone, think that Sirius had done what had been claimed? There was just no way. John had worked with him, had known him, had spoken to him. There was no way.

After gazing at Harry for another few minutes, John got up to re-enter the bathroom, getting ready properly, and then getting himself some breakfast, always with his ear to Sherlock’s open bedroom door. It wasn’t until he’d had forced some toast down into his uneasy stomach and taken up his mug of tea for another sip, that he heard Harry become fussy. The telltale sounds of a waking baby. Sounds that were now forever embedded in his mind, in his soul.

Wasting no time, John set his mug down and headed back, crumbs still on his shirt which he’d neglected to brush off in his haste to comfort the child. Harry was just starting to sit up, mouth crumpling and down-turning in the beginnings of a sob, but thankfully at the sight of John it was halted while he instead reached out to be picked up with a low moan, clenching his fists with an impatient bounce and a burbling whine. It was a well used and well favoured response of Harry’s at John’s presence, as well as Minerva’s, and always resulted in what the boy wanted.

Reaching down, John pulled the boy into his arms, picking the deer toy up too, and kissed him on the brow, “I’m here,” he murmured, walking back towards the kitchen. “I’ve got you.”

Mumbling something that sounded a lot like the word ‘dada,’ Harry turned his head to look around blearily, clutching the deer to his chest with one hand and pointing with the other, gesturing at things idly, not seeming to be overly interested in them exactly, but still inquisitive enough to take notice of them. More like he was spotting differences – something he’d done since the incident – picking out what things he didn’t have in his own home and searching for those he did, those he remembered. Searching for his parents. He scowled and wriggled when there was, of course no sign of them, bouncing in John’s arms, and then dropped his forehead to his shoulder with a small heart-wrenching sob.

Biting his lip to stop his own sounds of dismay, John rubbed at his back and placed another kiss on his forehead, “I’m sorry,” he whispered into his hair. “Daddy’s not… he’s not here.”

Harry frowned and pointed around with another sob, tears filling his eyes, “Da...” he said before grimacing in upset. “Muh-mummy?”

“No,” John replied lowly, keeping his arms wrapped around the child as he swayed slightly from side to side. “They’re not here any more. They… they were taken away, by a bad, _bad_ man. Do you remember? Do you remember me telling you?”

“Bad...” Harry replied in a whisper with a sniffle, touching the scar on his head with his fingertips, bottom lip quivering.

“Yes,” John agreed softly. “Very, _very_ bad. But the bad man is gone now. No more bad man. Your mummy and daddy sent the bad man away, to look after you.”

Harry’s chin crumpled and he glanced around again, looking into the living room before weeping quietly to himself, gripping and grasping and pulling at the deer in his hands, and dropped his head down on John’s shoulder again as his weeping became wailing. He’d done much the same the first time John had tried to explain things to him, and all the times after it. Harry still hoped, still asked, and it made John’s heart ache, made looking after him a lot more emotionally taxing. What else could he say? What else was there to ease the boy’s suffering?

“Sh, it’s okay,” John hushed, beginning to gently rock Harry as he walked around the table, wishing there was something more he could offer. “I know. I know. It’s… it’s going to be okay though. I’ve got you. I’m here. You’re _safe_.”

Harry whined and cried until John’s shoulder was soaked and he was sure the boy’s voice would soon give out, then finally petered out when Mrs Hudson came up with a soft frown and distracted him. He sniffled and quietened as he looked her over, slumped against John’s chest, and lifted his head when she came to him with a coo and a look of concern, wiping away his tears with her fingers. He remembered her, though was still somewhat blurry with sleep and timid, unsure how to respond for a moment or two.

“What’s all this then?” she asked, watching as Harry gestured around in distress. He spoke in reply but it was a garbled noise, no real words, and so she merely smiled at him. “How about some nice breakfast, _hm_? - And look at what Sherlock made you! Specially for eating in!” She pointed into the living room and John followed her finger to find a beautifully carved wooden high-chair that he hadn’t noticed until that moment. It was hiding in plain sight. It was just like Sherlock to do something like that. Now that John was looking, he also noticed that the living room was a tad neater, cleaner. “Isn’t it lovely?”

John smiled gratefully at the wonderful woman and looked down at his charge, “Would you like to sit in it?”

When no answer was forthcoming, Mrs Hudson gave John’s back a pat, “Let’s bring it over here so you can sit and eat with us like a _big_ boy,” she said, beaming at them both and carrying the chair into the kitchen, putting it near the table with a happy nod. Harry looked down at it, chewing on the deer toy and shifted with a sniff in John’s arms. “There we are. Now, you must be hungry. Why don’t I do you some nice toast? Would you like that Harry?”

Nodding, Harry let out a small whimper and gave his stomach a soft rub, “Hun-gray...”  
  
Mrs Hudson turned to start bustling around the kitchen and gave John a sideways glance, “Toast and jam, I think?”

“Yes, that will be fine,” John replied, walking over to the high chair and carefully settling Harry into it, though he continued to rest his hand against the child’s back, unsure if he still needed a continued physical presence or not. “Are we going to eat the crusts today?”

“Crusts are ever so good for you, Harry dear,” she told him as she shuffled away with a titter to grab some bread. Harry, however, was looking down and around at the chair, clutching onto the deer, moaning and mumbling quietly with fascination.

John rubbed his hand up and down the toddler’s back, “See, even Mrs Hudson says they’re good for you,” he said playfully.

“Will two slices of bread be enough?” Mrs Hudson asked John. “And what drink would young Harry like? Milk? Juice? Tea?—Has he tasted some tea?”

“Milk for now,” John replied, setting himself slowly into the seat right next to Harry, hand moving to hold his small leg when the angle to reach his back became too awkward. “And two slices should be just enough.”

“Two slices, smothered in butter and jam, coming right up!”

Harry, glancing over the edge of the high chair, purposely pushed the deer off with curiosity and watched it hit the floor with a soft bounce, pointing at it once it stopped with a humming moan, clearly wanting it back. It was a game he frequently loved to play, a game all children enjoyed, and one John wasn’t in the mood to join. At first it had been cute and interesting, watching Harry understand what it was he had done, what had happened, how far up he was, or how far away, but then it became more of a game of fetch, less about learning and more about the boy’s amusement. Harry would always get back what he had chucked, no matter the length between it and him. John must have enjoyed it as a child too, he was sure, but he was no longer that child.

Huffing, John leaned down to collect the deer, having to let go of Harry’s leg as he did so, and brought it back up to hold in front of the boy, not quite giving it back, not yet, “We’re not going to experiment with gravity _again_ , are we?”

“The little darlings _love_ doing that, don’t they?” Mrs Hudson laughed, turning to look over her shoulder just as Harry grabbed for the deer with a pout and a wriggle. “I don’t know how many times I’ve seen children throwing things from high places – At least he’s not _jumping_ from them yet.”

John glanced up at her sharply with a mixture of fear and realisation, “ _Don’t_ say that. _Why would you say that?_ ”

Mrs Hudson waved a hand in gentle dismissal, “It’ll be fine, love. We’ve got time before that,” she said, taking out the toast once it popped to smear with butter and jam. “And you’re _very_ vigilant.”

With a churning gut, John looked down at Harry again, giving him a stern look, “You’re _not_ jumping off anything while _I’m_ around Harry.”

“ _Fuffy_!” Harry exclaimed in reply, patting and squeezing at the deer’s head with a bright grin, kicking his legs out.

John narrowed his eyes at him and sat back in his chair with a sigh, “Don’t think this means I’m going to keep from telling you this again.”

“Here you go!” Mrs Hudson told Harry as she came over with a plate of neatly sliced toast. “How’s that, eh? Think you can eat all that for John? Crusts too?” She bent down to him with an encouraging smile and Harry blinked at her, then pressed the deer with a small mumble into the jam, bringing a quiet titter from her. “No, I don’t think she’s hungry, sweetheart.”

“She might like some milk later,” John added when the boy’s forehead crumpled and his mouth puckered, “but little boys need their jammy toast to grow _big and strong_. And very, _very_ sticky.” He poked at Harry’s nose, bringing back the wide grin, and then watched as he chirped a few illogical, garbled words and reached for a slice to chew on, much to Mrs Hudson’s glee.

“Do you like it then? Oh _good_! That’s _my_ favourite jam as well, thought you might enjoy it,” she told him as he ate and rocked in contentment.

“You seem to have converted at least one new follower,” John told her with a smirk, then rose with a gentle hand on Harry’s head and set the kettle to boil, searching the cupboards for what supplies they had. There wasn’t much – unsurprising really, considering they’d only just arrived the day before – but there was enough at least for some more toast of his own and some tea. “Tea, Mrs Hudson?”

“Why yes, that would be _lovely_ ,” she replied, quickly heading to the fridge. “I’ll just get Harry his milk! - We should buy him some of those kid friendly cups. The ones with the special lids.”

“And a few bibs as well,” John agreed, looking Harry over as he continued to happily nibble on his toast and get his mouth, chin, and nose smeared in crumb-coated butter and jam. Lifting his gaze, John then took note of the healing cut on his brow and exhaled with a pang in his chest. “Perhaps some hats…”

Mrs Hudson nodded merrily, “Yes, yes! Can’t have too many hats for children. Need to keep them _nice and warm_ ,” she said, pouring milk into the smallest cup she could find before handing it to Harry, who dipped the toy into it without hesitation or warning. “Oh dear...”

John chuckled, “ _See_ , I told you she’d like milk,” he murmured. “What else do you think Fuffy likes?”

Harry held out one of the toast slices, half of it folded in his sticky fingers, damp with saliva, and squealed, “Hun-gray?”

“For me?” John asked, holding his hand under it so that it wasn’t lost to the floor.

“ _Mm_!” Harry nodded, pointing at John and then to his own mouth to demonstrate with a gnashing of his ten teeth with a giggle, glancing at Mrs Hudson when she laughed softly at him nearby.

John smiled and gnashed his own teeth, “Thank you. Yes, I am hungry.”

“Isn’t he just _precious_!” Mrs Hudson cried out, seeming unable to hold back a coo of fondness as she came forward to cup Harry’s face, wiping the jam from his chin with her thumbs. “You’re a _very_ good boy for sharing. Very, very good!”

John bit into part of toast the least covered in spittle, careful not to smudge any jam onto his own chin, and nodded at him, “Thank you very much, Harry,” he said and licked his lips. “It’s very yummy.”

Mrs Hudson hovered around for most of the day, first fussing over Harry and then cleaning up the living room a bit more, before she left John alone with the toddler in the late afternoon. Something that wasn’t as daunting as John had been expecting, considering he had never really taken care of Harry without a partner. There had always been another person he could go to, another who could lend a hand, who could look after Harry with him in shifts, so the other could rest and sleep and re-energise. It helped that Harry was distracted, of course, distracted and happy again, playing with the deer, crawling across the rugs, then toddling from the TV to John’s knees and back again. Thankfully he’d seen a television before, both because of his mother and John himself, and so was comfortable with the look and sound of it, even dancing to some adverts as they played between programmes.

A little after dinner, when John had changed Harry into some fresh clothes following a much needed bath, he decided that there had been quite enough television for one day and sought out some toys to set around the boy to keep him entertained, while he put some of his things up on the shelves and filling what space there was, making it feel a little more like home. It was strange how quickly a room, a building, felt homely and warm once possessions were arranged, stacked, and fitted. Objects planted to breathe some warmth, some life, into an ordinarily barren or foreign area.

He never left Harry’s side and by the time the sun had set, and Harry had started yawning, John had decided that Sherlock would be returning late or not at all and waiting for him would only make him less prepared for the night then the morning.

The boy extended his arms up to John with a whine as he closed the small distance between them, head lolling and forehead crumpled, and grunted, flexing his fingers, “ _Up_!”

John chuckled lightly, lifting him by his armpits, “I’m a broom now, am I?” he asked, collecting the now nicely cleaned deer and holding it out for Harry to hold. “Time to brush our teeth, and then to bed with you.”

Harry pressed his head to John’s neck, “Boom,” he tried to repeat with a low murmur.

John, taken with his determination to copy any and all new words, pressed a kiss into his hair as he carried him to the bathroom. Thankfully he’d managed to remember to bring Harry’s wash things, but not his own, and picked up the dragon shaped toothbrush from the side after putting a bit of child friendly toothpaste on it. It was already so easy now, even after the short time he’d looked after John, and he shared a smile with the sleepy boy, balancing him on his hip and leaning against the sink while he did the rest one handed.

“Open wide.”

Frowning at it, like he’d done a few time before, Harry slowly opened his mouth and tilted his head, looking around the bathroom as he gripped and petted the deer. He only fussed a little during the procedure, as usual, closing his mouth on the brush to chew on it, pulling a face of distress when it was drawn over his tongue, and wincing with a snuffled noise of complaint when John went for the molars, which were just starting to peek through, yet he behaved overall, eased by John’s shushing and the constant yielding body of the toy in his hands.

When he’d finished, John told him to spit into the sink, something he did rather happily, and made him rinse out his mouth, dabbing his lips and chin with a towel, “How are your teeth? Do they hurt?”

Harry nodded and pointed into his mouth with his fingers, talking disjointed nonsense around them, and then reached for John’s mouth, playing with his lips and trying to look at his teeth and open his jaw to point at his too. He continued to talk and mumble, drooling and bouncing in John’s arms, blinking widely when John grasped at Harry’s wrist and, covering his teeth with his lips, ‘bit’ lightly on his fingers.

Squealing with laughter, Harry squirmed and tried to break free, “Hun-gray?” he asked between his giggles.

“Not for squirming little boys,” John replied and proceeded to take Harry into Sherlock’s room, pulling his shirt up and blowing loud, rippling, tickling raspberries onto his stomach. Harry’s next squeal of laughter filled the room as he writhed, kicked his legs, and reached to touch and push and tug John’s cheeks and hair. John indulged for a little longer, then pulled up and placed a verbally and comically noisy, fat kiss on Harry’s cheek. “Time for bed.”

“ _Fuffy_!” Harry exclaimed quickly, holding up the deer for a kiss as well with a wide smile. The toy bumped into John’s nose and chin and mouth as Harry made a clumsily wet kissing noise. “Fuffy, fuffy!”

With a happy smile, John granted the deer a kiss on the nose, tapped it with his wand to make it softly glow, and then placed Harry carefully in his crib, “There we are now,” he said, lowering his voice and pulling Harry’s blanket over him. “What story shall we have tonight?”

“ _Fuffy_!”

“The story of Fuffy it is,” John agreed with a nod. “Once upon a time, there was a deer, and her name, was Fuffy…”

He wove his story with the aid of magic, with sparkling wisps of lines and flashes of light, a story about a young deer who had lost her parents at a young age, but had been looked after by the rest of the herd. How she had grown up loved and happy, with great fields and vast forests to explore, and many different creatures to meet. That night, he told the story of Fuffy meeting a dog, and their adventures together, and already began to think of another story for the next night in the back of his mind.

Harry’s eyes were heavily lidded by the time he was done and John stroked back his mussy, soft hair, smiling as the boy blinked up at him sluggishly and drifted off to asleep. As peaceful as Harry looked, John felt his smile falter at the knowledge of what the night would bring, at the nightmares that wouldn’t stop. Not for a long time. He knew that personally all too well. There had been barely a night since the war had begun that John’s sleep hadn’t been left untouched by the horrors he’d seen, the horrors he’d caused, and those that could have been.

It was still early for John yet and he decided to spend the time reading some of his medical texts before finally sleeping, hoping that perhaps Sherlock would return before he retired so he could ask for news. Taking a moment to quickly retrieve one of his books, he settled on the bed, leaving the dim bedside lamp on to keep from disturbing Harry as he slept, and kept an ear out for the door and on Harry’s breathing.

When his eyes were beginning to droop, his mind fogging with the need for oncoming sleep, John became aware of a sound in the flat. He paused, holding his breath, and listened for a few moments, trying to pinpoint where had come from and what it was, straining to hear it again. Was it Mrs Hudson below? Was it coming from outside the flat, from the street? John listened for another minute and then got up, putting his book aside to quietly step to the door, open it, and peer out.

Something shifted near the open partition separating the kitchen from the living room, a shadowy figure pacing from one side to the other, though it was quick, and the flat was dark, so with a look back at Harry’s sleeping body, John took his wand from his pocket and tiptoed out, making his way down the corridor. Ready to confront or even fight. Free hand fisted, breathing steady, it took a few more paces forward before he deflated with a rush of relief.

It was Sherlock. Of course it was. He was still in his coat, making his silhouette all the more broad but it was him all right, and when he shifted across the partition again, John smelt the outside, smelt smoke, smelt an odd sort of perfume waft his way.

Sighing, though still partially on guard, John stepped into the room, wand held at his side, “Sherlock?”

“You should be asleep. We both know you need it,” Sherlock shot back as he fiddled with something on the desk and braced his hands on the edges, tapping his fingers in either excitement or agitation. Perhaps both?

“I heard someone come in,” he replied, stepping close enough to now smell the traces of Sherlock’s sweat as he tried to see what it was Sherlock had brought. “ _You_ , obviously...”

Some photos had been scattered down on the desk and through the dim light John could make out that they were animated photos, that what was moving within them was more or less the same thing in each. It was Sherlock’s pale hand holding, turning and twisting what looked like a severed finger. Before John could question it, or even turn on a light, Sherlock pulled something from his pocket and placed it down above the images. It was a wand, but it wasn’t Sherlock’s wand, it was someone else’s.

“… _Where_ did you get that?” John asked, voice quiet as he recalled last seeing the wand in another wild haired man’s hand. “Does anyone know?—”

“Until I find _all_ the pieces, _all_ the evidence, you tell _no one_ that I have it. _Understood_?” Sherlock said, turning to finally look at him and loom almost over him, coat flaring out with side of him.

John blinked, then met Sherlock’s fierce, determined gaze, “Not a soul.”

Sherlock let out a slow breath and nodded, “This is good. Finding it. There’s no denying such _obvious_ evidence.”

“But is it enough?” John asked, looking over the photos again. “Whose finger is that?”

“Peter Pettigrew’s,” Sherlock told him, tapping all of the images and then sliding one towards John as he went to turn on the living room light. “That was all that was left of him _apparently_...”

“Left?” John asked, looking at the images again with a frown. “They _cut_ his finger off?”

Sherlock clapped his hands together with sudden exuberance and grinned, “ _Yes_ , e _xactly_! - It doesn’t look like it was blown off, does it? Too clean. Too smooth. Like, as you rightly pointed out, it was _cut_.”

“Blown off?” John scoffed in frustrated disbelief. “Who would think…?” He stopped, grimacing and groaning as he rubbed a hand over his face, shocked and disgusted at how naive the ministry was. “We are governed by _idiots_.”

“Glad you agree,” Sherlock huffed with amusement and slammed his hand down on the desk, gesturing with a burst of building certainty. “The finger. The confrontation. It’s _him_. Peter. _He_ betrayed the Potter’s. – I’ve had a bad feeling over Pettigrew for quite some time, but I couldn’t work out _why_ exactly. He was always odd, of course, but that wasn’t it. There was something else… there’s _always_ something!” Sherlock pursed his lips and clenched his jaw, spinning on his heel to angrily pace. “I was _stupid_ to ignore it! To not pursue it!”

“Peter?” John shook his head, feeling sick to his stomach at the very suggestion. Him? It was almost worse than Sirius having done it. Peter was close to them all. Peter was supposed to be their friend. Resting his hands on the desk as his legs wobbled, curling his fingers tightly into the edge of the wood. “But… _why_? Why would he do this? _Why would they choose him_?”

“I need to talk to Sirius,” Sherlock announced somewhere behind John. “I need to get into Azkaban.”

“Not an easy task,” John muttered, taking several deep, hissing, seething breaths and then pushing away from the desk, turning to look over at him. “And then there are the dementors; we don’t know what state he’ll be in because of them.”

“The sooner the better,” he murmured, looking at John via the mirror over the fireplace. “It _needs_ to be him. Only he has the answers I seek. There was a reason he left that night. He _knew_ where he was going, _who_ he was going after. And once he found him...” Sherlock didn’t have to finish the sentence.

John nodded, “To think that James – that _Lily_ – could have trusted…” He stopped himself, unable to complete the sentence, and tried to calm the veil of descending anger. “I will keep an eye on Harry while you’re away. - Make sure you don’t push yourself _too_ hard. There’s only so much that restorative and pepper up potions can do.”

With a flickering shadow of a smile, Sherlock turned his head slightly to glance over his shoulder at him, “Mm. We still have a lot of work to do concerning him. Mainly paperwork, but a bit of legwork too...” he rumbled with a long sigh. “I started the proceedings today. _Somewhat_. I visited the Dursley’s and had them sign what was needed, even recorded our _pleasant_ conversation in case there was any doubt. There’s still more to do, I simply got the most important out of the way first. Made sure that their dislike for him was apparent and could _never_ be questioned.”

“Were they _that_ eager that you were able to visit and gather all of this in _one_ day?” John asked, though he was far from surprised. “I don’t know much about all this adoption stuff. Will we have to get the goblins involved at all?”

“It’s possible, yes,” Sherlock replied with a hitch of his shoulders, “Harry has a great deal of inheritance money. - I have _all_ his information, his papers, on me.” He reached into one of his pockets, almost his entire arm dipping inside, and brought out a folder, walking to hand it over. “His birth certificate is in there too.”

John accepted the folder, but didn’t open it, deciding he was not in the right state of mind to be able to examine them yet, “I will look at them tomorrow...”

There was a snuffle and a squeaking whine from the bedroom at that moment and Sherlock looked over sharply, already turning to walk toward the sound, before he seemed to stop himself and signalled instead for John to go, “I’m busy,” he muttered as an excuse, moving to the desk when Harry began sobbing. “And I will not be staying overly long.”

“Right.” Placing the file on the kitchen table, John headed away, barely granting Sherlock a roll of his eyes along the way, and stepped up to the crib to pull the boy into his arms, blanket getting a little caught in between them. He hushed him and began to sway from side to side. “Oh Harry...”

Grasping hold of John, Harry tucked himself closer and howled with distress into John’s chest, face already reddening as his body trembled with each shuddering breath. He cried and cried in John’s arms, coughing slightly and reaching for John with small hands. He was in immense distress, something unfortunately not unfamiliar to John by now, and he hated it, hated seeing the young boy suffer. Being so little, so innocent, so early in life, made it all the more horrid. A 15 month old baby should not be so traumatised.

“I’ve got you,” John soothed into his hair, kissing at his brow and rubbing his back. He started to hum again then, a different song this time, one he could remember his father singing a very, very long time ago. “ _Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. And the dreams that you dream of, once in a lullaby_ …”

By the time Harry had calmed to only sniffles and whines, blinking slowly into the middle distance from where he was pressed to John’s torso, Sherlock had burst into movement again in the living room with a soft fluttering of papers. John continued to hum after he ran out of lyrics and looked out towards him with a concerned frown, quickly summoning Fuffy to him so Harry could hold it should he wish, and stepped back into the kitchen to check on what Sherlock was doing, still humming softly to keep a shaking Harry as calm as possible.

Sherlock was standing up on the sofa and pinning things to the back wall with a considering frown, tilting his head and angling his body. The images of the finger were already up there, as well as a few of the Potter’s destroyed house and the street Sirius had supposedly blown up with his encounter with Pettigrew, Sherlock had also secured a map, marking certain places with coloured pins. Documents and other images he had yet to be attached floated behind his shoulders in an odd sort of a queue, fluttering and dancing in the air. The sight caught Harry’s attention and he turned his head to look with a mumble, the deer clutched in his hands, half covering his face.

“Oh dear,” John muttered, and stepped closer. “Does Mrs Hudson know you’re doing that to her wall?”

With a quirk of his mouth, Sherlock attached another photo, this one the familiar group photo of the Order, “How well did you know them?” he replied, forgoing his question to put forth another and gesturing to Remus, James, Lily, Sirius and Peter. “You knew them at school, yes? Quite more than I ever did. Tell me about it.”

“Not _that_ well,” John countered. “I wasn’t as close as they were to _each other_. They’re a few years younger than me. I was on the quidditch team with James and Sirius, so I knew them best in school because of that, and then after, when they graduated, through the Order. Lily and I used to work together a bit. I only knew Remus and Peter through everyone else.”

“So you don’t know any secrets about them? Anything that others don’t know?” Sherlock asked, though he snorted. “Besides the _obvious_.”

John shrugged, “They had their nicknames; Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. I know Remus is a werewolf, but that’s—”

“ _Obvious_. Yes, I _just_ mentioned that.” Sherlock finished pinning up everything else with a flare and a sigh, then jumped down at a bound, gazing at his map of events and clues with an almost shining pride, and piercing scrutiny. “I assume those nicknames were because of something. Something that connects them all. That connects them to Remus Lupin. - So, animal related. Patronus potentially. Not an easy thing to achieve, the corporeal patronus.”

John pursed his lips in thought, “I remember James had an invisibility cloak, though he didn’t tell me that until _after_ I’d left Hogwarts. He used it to sneak around the castle with his friends.” He looked down at Harry for a moment, remembering his father, his mother, how they used to smile, talk, move, and laugh, then back at Sherlock. “I don’t know how they’d have all fit under it though; it wasn’t a huge thing.”

“Invisibility cloak,” Sherlock echoed with a small frown as Harry shifted, reaffirming his grasp on John’s clothes. “Who else knew about that?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, bouncing on his feet a little and rubbing the boy’s back again. “The rest of the Marauders and Lily, as far as I know, and probably Frank Longbottom.”

Sherlock stared at the group photo for long several seconds, then turned to him, “What else?”

“Uh, James and Sirius would _always_ be as exhausted after a full moon as Remus was, after their third year anyway,” John commented, racking his brains for anything he could think of. “Peter probably was too, but I never really saw him. - I think Lily grew up being friends with Snape, but she didn’t talk about him much… and... um…”

As Sherlock gave the wall another look Harry made a fussy noise and sleepily extended his arm, as if pointing at the photos, but then twisted his hand toward Sherlock, seemingly reaching for the man’s hair, “We can exclude Lily and Severus from this,” Sherlock said lowly, his hands on his hips. “Information about them is not relevant as far as I can see.”

“Right, okay then,” John said, frowning in thought while he regarded Harry’s actions and stroking back his messy hair. “What is it Harry? Do you want Sherlock?”

“ _No_ , he doesn’t,” Sherlock rumbled in response, yet Harry continued to reach out within the small distance between them. “And he’s stopped crying now. You can put him back to bed.”

“Oh shush,” John told him with a scoff and walked up to him, lifting his eyebrows in challenge and thinly veiled amusement. Harry clutched onto Sherlock’s coat with a small grunt of success.

The man wearing said coat glanced down with a small exhale through his nose, “ _Must_ you encourage him?” he groused, though he didn’t pull away or remove Harry’s grasp.

John just grinned at him and stepped around in front of him, “Hold him,” he requested firmly. “He _wants_ you to hold him.”

“No he doesn’t. What he wants, and _needs_ , is to be put back to bed,” Sherlock insisted as Harry released his hold on the deer to touch at his chest and reach for his hair again with a whine, scowling and emitting a high noise of complaint. “Stop that.”

“For Merlin’s sake...” With a sigh, John carefully manoeuvred Harry so he was facing Sherlock, and while it was John who was holding him up, it was Sherlock he was resting against. “ _Hold him_.”

Shooting John a narrowed glare, Sherlock ignored the increasingly fussy Harry for several seconds more, but ultimately gave in and took him, lifting Harry up so he could get his hands onto some of Sherlock’s curls, “John has hair as well, you know,” he grumbled as he adjusted him, still keeping his gaze on the wall, the photos, the map and documents upon it while the sleepy boy twirled his small fingers into and around his hair.

Smiling at the fruits of his labour, John took a small step back and looked at the wall again, trying to find anything in his memories that would be useful, “... I don’t know if this is useful, but those nicknames only turned up after they started being exhausted around the full moon,” he said. “Except for Remus. He seemed to have been stuck with that one since their second year.”

“Hm. Could be useful. _Very_ useful...” Sherlock tilted his head to peer closer at the photo of them all and Harry made a squeaking giggle in joy as he was bombarded with dark ringlets. “So: Moony is Remus, Padfoot is…?”

“Sirius,” John supplied. “Prongs is… was, James, and Wormtail, Peter.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed and hummed thoughtfully, stepping up onto the sofa again to inspect the photos, the photo of everyone, of the finger, of the house, the muggle street, and a photo of Peter on his own that he’d placed nearby. He stayed quiet, merely staring and holding Harry, and only shifted and stepped back down when Harry put his head down on his shoulder, one hand still playing in the curls behind Sherlock’s ear, and the other extending out for John. John held out the deer, thinking he wanted his toy, but Harry frowned at him with a mumbling grumble and took the toy, though continued to reach, evidently wanting more.

“Hm. Can’t be _that_ difficult, considering they were children when they came up with these nicknames and they aren’t exactly the most _intelligent_ bunch,” Sherlock said under his breath. “So. Moony = Moon – Werewolf. Padfoot = pad on the foot, so, paw? - Animals with paws, with padded paws, are felines, canids, bears, mustelids, and rodents...”

“They had a name for Harry too, you know. Their little Prongslet,” John said with a small smile, allowing Harry to take hold of his fingers. “Their little fawn. Lily… referred to him as that more than James did--”

Sherlock blinked, “Fawn?—But of course! Prongs = Stag,” he said, glancing at John with a grin. “Prongs mean two or more projecting, pointed ends. Like those of a fork, but in this case, stag antlers. - The patronus is an odd thing, isn’t it? Hers could have changed to fit his. I wonder what it had been beforehand… or perhaps it was _always_ a deer...” Sherlock shrugged, bouncing a slightly dozing Harry. “Whatever the case, that must be the answer—I should have started with that one really.”

“It can’t _just_ be that they named themselves after their patroni?” John said with a frown. “No, it would have to be… to have been… Merlin, _animagi_?”

Sherlock cocked his head with a tugging, one-sided grin, an impressed and proud gleam in his eyes, “Werewolves aren’t mentioned to attack other animals, correct? Or they pose very little danger to other animals. So it does make _quite_ a lot of sense that they’d do that once they found out about Remus. Give him the company that would be preferable and make sure things don’t get out of control.”

“ _All_ three of them, becoming unregistered animagi just for Remus…” John shook his head in shock. It had been a leap in logic, but the fact that Sherlock was staring at him the way he was, made John flush from the evident praise, surprised he had so quickly latched onto what was possibly absolute fact. “Okay, okay, so, uh, wormtail… Rat? Mouse?... Beaver?”

“ _Rat_. Yes. Rather suits him,” Sherlock said, shooting a sudden and austere stare to the photo of Peter, one of his hands shifting with an almost impulsive action to cover Harry’s small back in a rather protective way. “Less to do with the animal and more to do with the definition of the word itself – A despicable person, whom has been deceitful or disloyal.

“So he just… cut off his finger and left? In the sewers I don’t doubt,” John muttered, happy his sneer was short-lived thanks to the way Sherlock was still holding the young boy, despite not wanting to hold him in the first place just moments ago. It was amazing how gentle the man could be, a contradiction to his sometimes cold exterior.

“He could be _anywhere_ by now,” Sherlock grumbled in dislike, scowling and then reaching out to tap the images of Peter’s finger. “ _This_ is the biggest clue, the most identifying mark and physical trait, that we have to finding him amongst any and all other rats...” He turned away to pace with Harry, something which tugged John with him via Harry’s grip on his fingers. “There may be more indicators to determine him from other rats, but to know exactly what, is fairly difficult.”

“You say that like they aren’t one of the most _common_ animals in existence,” John said, hopping over whatever mess remained in the room. “As you said, he could be _anywhere_.”

Sherlock grunted, “Yes. Anywhere,” he said under his breath, brow furrowed in thought, eyes squinting and flitting and staring. “Though… though he wouldn’t just go _anywhere_ , would he? He’d go somewhere safe. A nest, if you will. To wait for things to die down before he makes his move. He is nothing but a _coward_. Thinks of himself and no one else, that much is clear. He wants the safest place, the safest route, to stay as unharmed as he possibly can – Which explains, at least in some way, why he evidently swapped sides. He assumed we were on the losing team, that the stakes were too great to risk, and that it would keep him alive if he switched over.”

“Yes,” John said softly, then started to hum again when Harry snuffled and pulled his fingers closer. Their loud voices were no doubt keeping him from relaxing and drifting off, so John signalled silently to Harry, trying to catch Sherlock’s attention the quietest way he could. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to return him to his cot?

It took another few eye gestures and a tripping kick to his shin, before Sherlock paused in his pacing and glanced first at John, then gave a sidelong look at Harry, “I won’t be here tomorrow either,” he added idly, lowering the pitch of his voice and beginning to sway instead of pace. “I may not come back for some time. A few days at least.”

Continuing to hum a few moments longer, John reached the end of a verse and answered, “Just remember to take care of yourself.”

“ _I do_ ,” Sherlock replied, narrowing his eyes when John shot him an unimpressed look as Harry yawned and tugged gently at John’s fingertips and Sherlock’s curls in unison, eyes extremely lidded now, barely open. “Take him back and put him to bed.”

The instant Sherlock took Harry in both hands, pulling him from where the boy was cradled over Sherlock’s shoulder, nose buried in his coat collar, Harry blinked open his eyes and whimpered, clutching harder at Sherlock’s hair, then his ear with a sharp cry. It didn’t take long for Harry to become sharply alert, all signs of tiredness gone, and Sherlock winced when he screamed, unwilling to be separated from his place. John recalled that he’d often reach for, and play with, Minerva’s hair in times of distress, somehow comforted by the strange habit, one he must have picked up with his mother, Lily.

Sighing, John rubbed at Harry’s back to try and sooth him, trying out a comforting smile once he looked at him with another choking cry, crunching his face up, “It’s okay Harry. Sherlock has to solve that puzzle, remember? So you can see Uncle Padfoot again.”

Sherlock pressed him back into place, though not before rolling his eyes, “ _Fine_. But hurry up and fall asleep so I can go. I was only meant to pop back here for a moment. I needed to collect my thoughts and look at things from different angles. - Not to mention get John to answer some of my questions.” He checked the time and then gave the bedroom an indicating glance, making his way toward it. “Come along...”

John followed closely, making sure the deer didn’t fall on the way and moving the book he’d been reading from the bed, allowing Sherlock some more space if he wanted to sit there, “We’re both here Harry. You’re safe. We’re _all_ safe.”

Sherlock, John quickly found out, wanted more than to just sit on the bed as he adjusted Harry to his chest and reclined back, “Very safe. The safest,” Sherlock added under his breath while he got comfortable, propping his head up on one pillow. He looked at John and patted the space next to him with impatient annoyance. “ _Come on_.”

“Oh. Okay...” Having expected to be asked to simply sit, or just stand, John hesitated before he walked about the bed and knelt on the sheets. Another look from Sherlock, however, and he was lying down on his side, brushing his fingers over the back of Harry’s tiny hands.

Sherlock shifted the boy aside, slipping his writhing body between the two of them so Harry could grab at them both, “ _There_. Now, go to sleep,” Sherlock murmured in a whisper.

John smiled and massaged his fingertips over the Harry’s scalp, swiftly starting up another song, a familiar song, “ _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey_ …”

“You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away _,_ ” Sherlock abruptly rumbled along, not looking at either of them and therefore missing Harry’s happy squirm. He frowned and tilted his head on the pillow, tussling his hair into an untidy halo. Looking ridiculously and charmingly dishevelled. “I looked it up while I was out. And I’m not sure I particularly like that song. Sounds like it was written by a stalker, don’t you think so?”

“I never thought about it like that,” John chuckled, leaning close to a sleepy Harry with a smirk, “Doesn’t he have a _wonderful_ singing voice?”

Sherlock flashed an unimpressed look his way, “I didn’t sing,” was his low, annoyed response. “I spoke. _You_ sang. I _don’t_ sing.”

John grinned, placing a kiss on Harry’s brow and looking down at him, “I bet we’ll get him to one day.”

“ _Never_.”

“Oh yes.”

“Nope.”

“Mm-hm.”

“ _Stop_!”

With a soft squealing-like giggle in response to their playful banter, hyped up and alert yet again, Harry reached for Sherlock’s and John’s nearest hands to look at the differences between them, babbling to himself as he did so. He tugged at fingers, picked at nails, traced the creases, and pushed on every single knuckle. Amused, Sherlock watched him wordlessly, his own eyes lidding, something that Harry promptly started to mirror after his burst of energy began to waver and so John took the opportunity to begin his humming once more.

It wasn’t long, however, until his body reminded him that he had been drifting off himself before Sherlock had returned, and his attentions to Harry’s face and hair grew slow. Harry squirmed languidly with oncoming slumber, eyelids getting heavier and heavier, which only served to pull at John’s too. It was difficult to resist. The bed beneath him was soft and warm, the room quiet of everything but his own hums and the steady breathing of the three of them, and it was dark in the most comforting way. For a while John pushed himself to continue the melody, bringing it lower and lower in volume until he was sure Harry was in a deep sleep and he couldn’t go on any longer.

Blinking languidly, his eyes sore, John looked over at Sherlock to see if he would stay a little longer or leave now that Harry was finally ignorant of the world, and found, when his gaze focused, that he needn’t have bothered. Sherlock was already asleep. His head was tipped at an awkward angle on the pillow, features relaxed and entire body limp. Clearly the man had been hanging on by a thread and hadn’t been sleeping for God knows how long, as Sherlock often when focused on something. Apparently, according to all who knew him, he couldn’t switch that big brain of his off, too wired and invested on the puzzle, on the job. John remembered that was his excuse the last time he had asked, which had been a few years ago now. Did the man ever take a second to think of the consequences to that? Probably not.

Sherlock looked so relaxed and unburdened, and John wondered if he would ever see that expression again as he shuffled an inch or so closer to Harry. It was a blessing, a gift, and John smiled sleepily at him, bringing his hand to rest on Harry’s chest before allowing his eyes to fall shut. There would no doubt be complaints when Sherlock woke, but that was for the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback fuels us!
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